Bridal Shower
by Thrythlind
Summary: It started with, guess what, a woman. Well, two women actually. One in my office hiring me to find a lost knife and one in the morgue bled dry.
1. Chapter 1

"The Dresden Files is copyright Jim Butcher. This story is licensed under the Creative Commons as derivative, noncommercial fiction."

"I need your help finding something, Mr. Dresden," the woman in front of me said, pushing the glasses up on her nose. "Your ad says that you find lost items."

You're going to think the connection to the larger case should have been obvious from the get go. But really, I often have cases that I run simultaneously which have nothing to do with each other. The fact that some of my more prominent case files involve complex multi-layered plots that started out looking like completely unrelated situations has nothing to do with the hundreds of cases I deal with where there is no connection at all.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

She was dressed in a rather conservative manner, with long hair tied up in a tightly formal bun. She had a rather solid looking face that showed a number of early wrinkles on an otherwise young face. A small white line across one cheek was almost unnoticeable against the tan of her skin, but I've collected a few scars of my own, some quite recently, so I noticed fairly easily.

And she was avoiding looking me in the eye, which wasn't all that uncommon with people that came into my office, a lot of clients did that just in case. What was noticeable about this woman was that she was doing it well. She was used to avoiding eye contact and being polite about it.

I wasn't the first practitioner she'd met. Which isn't that odd either, I get jobs out of the community fairly frequently.

"That's right Miss Agallon," I told her, nodding. "I can do that for you. What is it you're looking for? Wedding ring?"

I probably shouldn't have assumed like that, but most of the time I have a woman looking for a lost item, it seems to be wedding rings.

Or engagement rings.

Or class rings.

Or other pieces of jewelry that were given to them by significant others and which they wanted recovered before said significant others discovered the item was missing.

However, none of them seemed to like it when I guessed that ahead of times. Some got a little scared, as if I might be reading their minds, but, for the most part they just got annoyed.

And I never quite seem to get it through my head not to pre-guess the lost ring thing.

The frown on the woman's face was normal, her answer was not.

"It's a family heirloom," she said. "A knife about three quarters of a foot long, engraved bone handle with a leather wrap. It is probably bronze, the records are vague."

If I had been lounging instead of politely attending to my soon-to-be client's wishes I would have sat up at that. As it was, I did lift my head and arch an eyebrow.

"And how long has this knife been missing?" I asked.

"It was last seen about fifteen years ago," Miss Agallon said simply. "In Miami, Florida. My family has reason to believe that it's here in Chicago, but we've hit a dead end."

"I have to tell you, Miss," I told her, shaking my head. "That it'll be a bit difficult to track with such a minimal description."

"Will this help?" Miss Agallon asked, pulling out a small white envelope and passing it over to me.

Opening the envelope I found an old piece of dried leather wrapping.

"Fifteen years you said?" I asked, receiving a nod in return. "Have you done anything to the leather?"

"No. It has been kept as it found and kept away from the elements as much as possible," she explained. "My family has dealt with practitioners before. We just hoped to handle things ourselves. Not to mention that most creditable wizards don't hire out for such work."

I glanced over to her trying to decide whether that comment was a compliment, insult or just neutral. In the end, it really didn't matter and I was more concerned with the assertion that my client's family had hoped to "handle things" on their own.

"Was this knife lost, or stolen?" I asked pointedly.

"Does it matter?" she responded, which meant stolen or worse.

"I like to avoid getting involved in vendettas that aren't mine," I explained. "At the very least, I like to know the risks going in. I'm guessing you saw the knife fifteen years ago yourself, when you were a kid perhaps?"

I pointedly indicated the woman's faint scar. I had to admit, I didn't like to push her on the question, but I'd learned a few times that not speaking up about such things caused more trouble than it solved overall.

"Fine," she said. "The knife was stolen. All I am asking is that you find it. Recovering it is my task."

I frowned and looked her over briefly. She didn't look like someone that could handle herself, but I knew a lot of people that didn't look like they could handle themselves while still being complete badasses. Part of me wanted to insist on her staying out of anything dangerous.

This may sound a bit old-fashioned and sexist, but I didn't like it when women were hurt, and this woman would have had to been barely a teen when she gained that scar. And I didn't like kids being hurt any more than I like it when it happens to women.

I struggled with that for a moment and found that the chivlarous part of me wouldn't let it go. But it was satisfied with leaving the decision until after I'd learned more about the whole situation.

"I believe I can help you then," I told her finally.

She might have been relieved at my acceptance, it was hard to tell. In any case she started to reach into her jacket again to pull out a second envelope.

"A retainer is cust..." she winced and dropped the envelope to the floor. "Excuse me."

The voice was weaker as she spoke then and this time she went into her purse to look for a plastic case of pills of some kind.

"Do you need some water?" I asked, standing up and heading for the sink near the coffee machine.

She lifted her hand to forestall me and produced a small thermos out of her purse next. Carried her own water for her medicine. There's paranoia for you.

After taking the pills and downing them with a swig from her thermos, she put the medicine away and reached down again for the white envelope which I presumed carried my first payment.

"Are you sure all you want me to do is find the item?" I asked cautiously.

Miss Agallon's lips briefly twitched as she stood up and held out the envelope.

"Your chivlary does you credit, Mr. Dresden," she said. "But I can handle myself for that."

"Chivalry?" I responded. "Most women call that chauvinism."

"I'm sure they do," Agallon said. "When should I expect results?"

"It's an old link," I warned her. "Even with the steps you've taken to avoid contamination. But I should have something for you in a day or two."

The woman nodded and turned toward the door, I moved ahead of her to hold open the door, getting a nod in response.

"I left a number for my cell phone on a note with the money," she told me before exiting.

I moved to the desk, pulling the money out of the envelope and counting it out. It was a generous retainer.

Always a bad sign.

The phone rang as I was putting the leather sample back in its envelope and thought about how best to go about running the tracking spell in consideration of the problems. Picking it up I encountered a familiar voice.

"Dresden, are you up for a quick consultation?" Murphy asked.

"Hi, Murph, good to hear from you," I responded snarkily. "I'm doing great, thanks for asking."

"Are you free or aren't you?" Murph snapped back, though there was good humor and a trace of teasing behind the barking demand.

"Yeah, need me at a crime scene?"

"Actually, Butters passed this on to me," she said. "Down at the Forensic Institute."

"The morgue, huh?" I asked. "Yeah, I can be there pretty quick."

"Provided the Beetle's running you mean?" Murphy asked and I could just see the smirk. "I'll be waiting."

* * *

"It's a vampire right?" Butters asked as I bent over the body he had on display, Murphy was at the doorway.

The body on the slab appeared to be a woman in her early twenties with lovely, classic features from a clearly Eastern European family She had black hair that had been bleached white and dyed blue in streaks. She had modest but attractive curves.

And she had an extra smile drawn ear to ear.

The reason Butters thought she might be a vampire was clear.

"Only Red Court vampires have fangs," I told him as I looked at the canines.

"Oh," Butters responded.

He knew better than to ask whether the girl was a Red Court vampire, he'd down autopsies on Red Court bodies in the past. His report on that was the reason for his professional exile.

"Just a girl with a vamp fetish then?" Murphy asked. "I know some dentists do custom work."

"Probably," I said shrugging and straightening myself.

"Are you sure?" Butters asked. "Aren't there Dracula style vampires out there?"

"Black Court," I said nodding. "But a Black Court would have fallen apart by now, this corpse is way too fresh to be one of them. Normal human teeth, smelly. They're basically walking rotting corpses with lots of power."

"Wouldn't that explain why her internal organs all look like they belong to someone forty or fifty years older?" Butters asked. "That and the lack of blood in her system?"

"No, not older, rotting," I clarified. "This is just some girl with a..."

I paused and considered something else and took a long breath and pinched the bridge of my nose briefly before moving toward the body and pulling an arm out from under the blanket. There were yellow and blue lines running up and down the woman's arm along with a number of old scars which looked suspiciously like human teeth marks. Moving around to the other side, I found the same "tattoos" and old bite marks along with a set of fresh teeth marks, deep enough to have been bandaged before she died.

I could see the indentations where the bandage had been.

"Did she come in with perhaps three or four other women who had tattoos like these somewhere on their body?" I asked cautiously.

"Well," the mortician said. "Yeah, but I haven't had access to those three. My boss thinks this one was just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"In other words," I said. "They dumped you with the weird one."

"Think of something, Harry?" Murphy asked.

"Lamia," I told them, I pointed to the teeth marks. "And the other three are her brides, you'll find their teeth match these marks. And you'll find her bite marks on them. I'm guessing the crime scene looked like a war zone. Lamia are minor talents, usually have influence over a single element, and their brides are physically powerful and usually well trained."

Butters started to flush a little as a predictable image probably started to come into his mind.

"Brides? You mean, like..." he stammered a bit and glanced toward the glowering Murphy.

"If you're asking whether I thought they were lesbians," I said with a smirk. "I wouldn't know about their private lives, but if they had that kind of relationship, I'd expect these bite marks and tattoos to be in a different place."

"Cut to the chase and explain what a lamia is, Harry," Murphy said. "And watch the innuendo."

"Lamia come out of some sorcerer's experiment," I explained. "Just before the dark ages, maybe a little bit before Merlin's time even in the area that became the Byzantine empire. Big time breach of the second law. No one's exactly sure of what the sorcerer was attempting. Some say they were looking for a way to prolong life, others say merely beauty. Others say they were basically running a Roman super-soldier project."

"So there's some sorcerer out there turning people into monsters?" Murphy asked tightly.

"No, this would be a descendant of the original victims, it's passed mother to daughter," I explained. "They live about fifty years longer than most humans on average, some live longer. It's one of the rare instances where the victims came out relatively okay. Body altering warlocks love to cite it all the time. Characteristically they don't visibly age..."

"So the organs on the inside look older than the body would," Butters said.

"Wow, I know some women that would kill for that," Murphy noted.

Somehow, I had this image of Murphy's younger sister traipsing through her mind. Then she widened her eyes as she followed that thought.

"Go on Harry, talk about these 'brides'," she said with a darker tone of voice.

"Lamias can't survive without being involved in a sort of...spiritual and physical partnership," I said.

"Symbiosis?" Butters asked.

"That'll work," I agreed. "The brides are formerly human women that have been transformed by the lamia. They get stronger, faster, tougher and they gain lasting beauty and increased lifespan comparable to the lamia's. Most lamia families have old alliances with specific human families to maintain a pool of brides. Baby lamia are generally fed off the blood of an existing bride until they can get their own set of brides."

"Let me guess," Murphy said. "The symbiosis is maintained by exchange of blood."

"A bride without a lamia would die within months, I think," I said shrugging. "A lamia without brides...well, you've heard of Elizabeth Bathory."

"So lesbian vampires?" Butters asked.

Murphy and I turned to look at him.

"Fangs, blood sucking..." he said shrugging. "Long life. Look human."

"You know, that describes a large number of supernatural creatures that aren't vampires," I told him. "My faerie godmother for one."

"You have a faerie godmother?" Butters said blinking.

"Psycho faerie godmother," Murphy corrected. "Apparently, psycho bloodsucking faerie godmother."

"And we don't know they were lesbians," I reminded him. "Though they probably lived in the same house and were single. Imagine a gaggle of girls who are literally BFFs and seem to have a psychic communication with each other so they have a creepy sort of hive mind going on."

"On to the important stuff, Dresden," Murphy insisted. "Do I have to worry about these lamia hurting people?"

"By and large they don't hurt people," I assured her. "Bathory was reportedly psychotic. And even the bad ones don't usually end up that blatant."

"So, next question," Murphy said. "Would this be a former bride trying to harvest lamia blood to stay alive?"

"Wow," I said looking toward the tiny scary woman. "Jumped right to that didn't you. I'm impressed."

"It seems obvious," she said. "Why else take all her blood?"

"It is," I nodded. "And if that is the case, the killer is probably still around."

"Why's that?" Butters asked.

"Minorities like to stick together," Murphy said. "If these are so rare..."

She glanced toward Harry.

"They got spread around the world," I said. "But there aren't more than two or three thousand out of the entire population of the world. Maybe ten or twelve major bloodlines, mostly European and Asian."

"Right," the detective said nodding. "They'll make sure they have neighbors on hand to watch their back. And that means that our killer has more targets."


	2. Chapter 2

"Blood drinking and you don't call it a vampire, hmm?" Murphy asked as we left the examination room.

"Exchange of blood is one of the most common compacts between sentient beings," I said, shrugging. "Heck even normal everyday humans have done it in the past. Take a knife cut each other's palms..."

"Blood brothers," Murphy said nodding in understanding. "What's with the marks, notice I didn't say 'tattoos'?"

"Right, the blood-marks," I said. "Skin discoloration, it comes when the lamia bites a person, brides cause a lesser version, but the lamia gets bit a lot more so same effect. The colors and patterns are distinct to the individual family, apparently."

"That's handy to know," Murphy said.

"I'll get you a more detailed report tomorrow," I promised her. "See if I can get a copy of the Bathory report out of the Council."

"The Wardens were involved with that?" Murphy asked. "I thought they only policed mortal magic use."

"They're in the 'mortal enough' category as far as the Council and the Accords are concerned," I explained. "The lamia might argue otherwise, but they don't have a standing in the Accords, so they get more out of living under the Council's shadow than they would without it."

Murphy grunted and nodded, and I could see her restraining herself from commenting on the Council and its policies. Not that she had to in my presence, but the Forensic building probably wasn't the best place to vent.

"Is this something we're not set up for?" she asked hesitatingly.

"Should be, I've never had occasion to get in a fight with a lamia or a lamia bride before," I said, shrugging. "But I've never gotten the impression they're big league hitters. Once you had her in custody, I doubt she'd last to the trial though."

"Well, I'll talk to Stallings," she said, "but this is homicide's case right now and I doubt they're going to want to share a case with SI, or me. Not after the Splattercon debacle."

"So you called me in because..." I asked, confused.

If Murphy and SI didn't have the case, why was she calling me up to talk about it. What would she do with the situation if she had no jurisdiction to get involved.

"Because, Mr. Warden of the White Council," she said, smirking in a nostalgic manner. "I believe your job is to keep an eye on the supernatural craziness in the area and being a good friend who understands the responsibilities of such a position. I thought I just might give you a heads up and some information so that you could, you know, do your job properly. You know, instead of holding back vital information and leaving you fumbling in the dark."

I winced at the little dig.

"How long have you been waiting to use that little bit of moral payback on me?" I asked.

She turned to look up at me.

"Since you told me you'd joined the psychic police force," she said snickering.

"So when you asked me to come for consultation," I noted, "you meant that you'd be consulting me, not the other way around. I don't think consultants usually summon their clients like that, Murphy."

She shrugged.

"Ehh, whatever works," she said.

We turned a corner toward the exit and stopped momentarily as we saw a familiar face there. Turning toward us, and blinking a bit in surprise, Detective Sergeant Greene slowly took out a notepad from a pocket in his tweed suit and started writing something down in it as he started to walk toward us.

"Mr. Dresden, Sergeant Murphy," he said, accentuating her rank unnecessarily. "This is an odd place to find you."

"Even odder place to find you, thought you liked your meat a bit fresher," I responded.

Murphy gave me a glare and I almost regretted the comment. Almost.

You don't let me catch you illegally browbeating a minor and expect to get on my good side.

"Funny you should say that," he responded casually. "I thought I detected a bit of new blood in the water myself just now. Might I ask what you two are doing here? Speaking to Dr. Butters perhaps?"

"Sergeant, we're all busy people," Murphy said before I could open my mouth again. "Let's not waste our time with pointless chest-beating."

He nodded gradually.

"Fine," he said. "Though I think we'll be talking if I find you've been sticking your nose into my business again. Mr. Dresden."

He fixed me another of those glares that declared he knew I was involved somehow in something shady and not quite on the up and up. I fought down the usual impulse I had of doing something blatantly and undeniably magical to him and walked past him with Murphy.

It was a moment of mutually repressed hostility and distaste.

I'm very familiar with those, and I don't imagine that Greene is much of a stranger to them either.

"Of course he'd be on this case," Murphy said shaking her head and glancing over her shoulder. "But at least he's good at what he does."

"I don't like the way he does business," I half-growled.

"Down, Papa Wolf," Murphy said. "That incident with Molly is over and done with. Lydia Stern tore him a new political orifice over the whole thing."

"I'm not packed for a long journey right now, Murphy," I responded snarkily.

"Not packed for a..." she glanced up at me and narrowed her eyes.

"You asked me to come..." I started to say.

"Dresden, this had better not be a short joke," she said firmly. "If it is a short joke, then you had better not finish it. I believe you are well aware of the consequences."

"One little comment and you're all over me," I said, "but you get to snark at me with impunity."

"It's not my fault that I save my wise-ass credit for special occasions while you sling it about until your up to your eyeballs in past due wise-assery," she explained.

"Wise-ass debt," I said. "Funny, very funny Murph. I think I'll charge you a couple of snarks on that one."

"Which still leaves you owing me a few thousand," she returned.

"While we're on the subject of me consulting you," I said. "Think you can do me a favor?"

"Depends on what it is," Murphy responded. "I don't have quite the clout I used to, you know."

"I know, Murph. God, do I know," I promised her.

"What do you need?" she asked, nodding in acknowledgment.

"Can you look into reports in Miami about fifteen years ago," I asked. "See if there's anything about an antique knife being stolen. Probably nothing there, but just in case."

"Finding lost items, I'm guessing?" she said. "Give me a better description and I'll look into it."

"Thanks, Murphy," I said with a smile.

"By the way, where's Mouse?" she asked.

"Molly, something about a stupid comment, a cute guy and a dog show," I said shrugging.

* * *

Walking down to my door, I first had to deal with Mister and his normal linebacker impression. Thirty pounds of cat into the back of your legs is nothing to sneeze at. Mister is one of those cats you hear about on the news who give bears pause.

"Hey there," I said. "Have a good walk around the block? Kill any caribou while you were out there? Terrorize a few cavemen?"

Opening my door is something that can replace a good daily work out. It was never installed properly, perhaps the person who did it was not quite as competent with this sort of home improvement project as he might have thought he was.

I certainly wouldn't know.

Once I got into the building, the mountain of fur that was the other prehistorically sized fur-bearing mammal in my life heaved himself to his feat and lumbered forward to greet Mister and I. Usually Mouse was walking around with me most of the day, but earlier my apprentice had come storming into my apartment giving some sort of panicky description about claiming to be in the dog show communities. Mouse had seemed as confused as I was, but now he was looking pretty damn proud of himself.

His mouth was open in a big doggy grin and he was puffing out his chest which proudly bore a huge and intricately woven blue ribbon.

"Oh, look at this," I said with a smile. "You're the best of show eh? Really showed all those other dogs a thing or two, didn't you."

He gave a silently little doggy laugh and the canine equivalent of an "aw, shucks" shrug.

"Argg!" Molly shrieked coming out of the lab and looking more than a little peeved. "Mouse stole the entire day! Everybody was 'Mouse, this!', 'Mouse, that', 'What an amazingly polite and unique breed!' Gah. I think Devin was going to ask Mouse out by the end of the whole ordeal."

"Devin?" I repeated, looking down at Mouse, who shrugged his shared confusion back at me.

"Never mind," Molly said, crossing her arms and shrugging back her hair.

Currently it was bleached white, a lot like the lamia lying on the slab in the Forensics Institute.

"Dr. Butters was looking for you," she said.

"Yeah, he got Murphy to track me down," I responded.

"Do we have a case then?" Molly asked excitedly.

"Murphy's not on the assignment, looks like Greene is," I told her, getting a wince in response. "But she thinks it might be Warden business, and it seems like she's right."

"So, we have a case," Molly said.

"We have a case," I agreed as I walked toward the kitchen and grabbed a coke. "Lamia."

"Lamia?" she asked. "Isn't that one of the Lawbreaking examples? Lesbian vampires, right?"

I sighed expressively and looked down toward Mouse.

"Everything's the lowest common denominator around here, isn't it?" I asked.

The dog shook his head in commiseration.

"Anyway, what do you want me to do?" Molly asked.

"Right now, not much," I said. "Go to the tome on near mortal critters and research up on the matter first. And there'll be a quiz later."

"What, why?" she demanded.

I didn't say what I was thinking, give credit to Pavlov, sometimes when the button pushing results in pain often enough even someone like me can learn a thing or two. What I was thinking was that Molly was an attractive young female with lots of talent and a fervent need to prove herself and that, lesbian or not, lamia and their brides would be only too willing to offer her a lifetime commitment, especially if one was coming into age right about now.

Not that I immediately thought they'd be deceitful about the full creepy hive-mind, die without my blood side-effects, but just to be on the safe side.

If she knew all the funtime consequences and still went for it...well, I'd deal with that later.

"Because that's what you do, padawan," I said. "Never go into a situation uninformed. A wizard is more than just magic, sorcerers are all about magic. A wizard is all about knowledge. Got it, kid?"

"Yeah, yeah," she said, moving down to the lab to get the aforementioned tome. "And why do you call it a tome? It's a three ring binder."

"I'm wizard," I reminded her as I followed downstairs into the sub-basement. "You're an apprentice. If I want to call a three ring binder a tome, then it is a tome."

Once down into the basement, Molly went to her workspace, which always seemed to have more and more stuff piling up in its area without ever looking unorganized. I think it was something she got from her mother. Some sort of organizationalmancer thing or something. I shrugged it aside.

"Upstairs, padawan," I said. "Safety rules."

She fixed me a look as she turned about in her chair.

"Of all the times you've cast some sort of spell down here and sent me out for safety," she said. "When has anything ever happened?"

"All it takes is once, Molly," I reminded her. "Up you get."

"Right, right," she said, taking the aforementioned tome and heading upstairs to read through it as instructed.

I waited until she was gone before turning toward the talking skull on its shelf.

"Bob," I said. "Up and at em."

The skull shook as a pair of orange lights appeared in its sockets.

"Oh, Harry," Bob yawned, the skull turning about on the shelf. "Did you need something?"

"A bit of research," I said, and then took a deep breath as I waited for the torrent of comments in bad taste. "I need to know about lamia."

"Lamia?" Bob asked immediately turning interested. "Are you serious, Harry? Really and truly serious?"

"Umm, yeah," I said, waiting for the lesbian vampire comments.

"This time, Harry, you have to get me pictures!" the skull declared exultantly. "Ooo, lamia, this is like a dream come true."

"Eh, no lesbian vampire comments?" I asked.

"Better than lesbian, Harry," the skull said, practically bouncing. "Polyamorous women into casual, short-term relationships with men! It's like a playa's wet dream!"

"'A playa'," I repeated arching an eyebrow.

"Seriously, Harry," Bob continued. "Think about it, lamia and their brides rarely if ever marry. They're practically married to each other even though most of them never have sex with each other (such a waste that is), but they all go out looking to procreate. If a lamia's contacted you, I'm guessing there's a little hubba hubba sperm donoring going on? Am I right? Huh? Huh? Nudge nudge, wink wink? Or is Molly getting bridal offers? Molly as a Bride, she's already stacked, a few years on that diet and she'll be practically a demigoddess!"

"Bob," I said tightly. "I'm not about to go sell my services as a sperm donor to a bunch of heterosexual lifemates. And I'm not selling my apprentice up the harem river. I need to know about lamia because it looks like I have a dead one on my hands in the city morgue."

"Such a spoil sport," Bob said. "You seriously have a dead lamia?"

"Seriously," I said, and told him the situation.

"I think Murphy is right about a lost bride," Bob said.

"I agree," I said tightly. "Can you give me something more about lamia than I already know?"

"You said the blood-marks were yellow and blue?" he asked and I nodded. "That would be the Kabakes family then, they're electromancers."

"Kabakes, thanks," I said noting it down. "What can you tell me about the extent of their powers, I've heard something about mind magic."

"They have something like your communion spell going on between each other," Bob said. "It's why they give the impression of being a hive mind. Usually, they've discussed and come to more or less an agreement on matters before ever opening their mouths to an outsider."

"So, one doesn't necessarily know what the others know," I said. "They're not in each others heads, they're just bouncing messages around."

"That's right," Bob said. "It takes an act of will to send the message."

"That's a rather inefficient if polite way to go about the mental solidarity thing," I said. "Not to mention opening yourself up to all sorts of nastiness if you're not careful."

"Four minds acting in concert is usually enough to keep out invasion and manipulation," Bob reminded me. "They may have open doors, but it's a killing zone inside for the uninvited."

"And the brides?" I asked.

"Heal like wizards with less of a lifespan, never lose their beauty, tough, fast and strong," Bob said.

"So, like ghouls or white court vampires?" I asked.

"About the same as a ghoul," Bob confirmed. "But, like I said, not nearly the healing ability. They try to supplement with combat training, but most of the families have started to slack off as people start to overlook them more."

"Were the Kabakes one of the families going slack?" I asked.

"Not really," Bob said. "They like their brides to be able to take care of themselves, and the bridal families they're mostly connected to seem to agree. Did you see the crime scene?"

"No," I said. "I only saw the lamia's body."

"Damn, it would be nice to know something a bit more about how things went down," Bob said.

"So we know if we were dealing with Uma Thurman or Charlie's Angels," I said, nodding. "I'll see what I can do."


	3. Chapter 3

I turned toward the phone and picked it up, dialing out to a warden number and giving the proper countersign before being passed on to an operator.

"Uhhh, Mr. Dresden, sir?" the voice at the other end of the phone asked nervously. "Can I…uh…help you?"

"Do I know you?" I asked, feeling the voice sounded a bit familiar.

"The…uh…last time you spoke to me, you umm…wanted me to deliver a message to the Senior Council…" she said and I recognized the voice.

"Ahh," I said a bit self-consciously.

Not too long ago, I'd set a trap for a traitor in the Council. The trap involved me calling out and challenging pretty much the entire group of the world's oldest and most dangerous wizards. The girl on the other end, probably not much older than Molly, had taken and delivered the message.

Verbatim.

The fact that she was still on the phones after that gave her a mark in her favor as far as I was concerned.

"Nothing like that this time," I said. "I just need a file delivered."

"And what file would that be, sir?" the girl asked with an air of relief that this was going to be a normal call.

"Bathory, Elizabeta," I said. "Hungary, 1610."

"All right," she said, writing down the information. "Anything else."

I took a deep breath.

"I need to get in contact with the Kabakes lamia family," I added reluctantly.

"Reasons?" the girl asked, with a note of confusion that implied she might not get the reference.

"It's the sort of thing I need to pass along face to face, kid," I explained. "Just get me a place and time to meet and tell them I'm coming."

"Alright, sir," she said. "Preferred drop for the files and appointment?"

"MacAnally's, Chicago," I said. "And put a rush on it if you can."

"Yes, sir," she said.

There was that sigh of relief again.

"Thanks, kid," I said with a smile.

"Will there be anything else?" the girl asked.

"Nah, that'll be it," I assured her. "No pronouncements of doom this time around."

There was a giggle on the other end.

"Thank you, sir," she responded lightly. "You should have the file later today, and you'll be contacted with information about Kabakes family."

I nodded and set the phone down on the cradle before turning back to Bob.

"All right, one more thing for you to do while I'm out trying to get a look at the crime scene," I said, drawing out the envelope with the leather wrapping and setting it down in front of him.

"What is this?" Bob asked. "Jerky? I don't do Jerky. I more prefer supple and young than old and dry."

"It's a sample from a lost item, Bob," I said. "I'd like you to tailor a tracking spell to get the most use out of it you can."

"Gee, that sounds entertaining," Bob said. "And why would I be doing this instead of you? Tracking spells are one of your fortes, such as they are, so I don't see what I could do that you couldn't."

"I'll be checking out the crime scene on this lamia killing," I told Bob. "If you'd rather I'd send you out to go check that out in broad daylight, I can do that, Bob."

"Hmm, no thank you," the skull said quickly. "I'm perfectly satisfied with the boring task at hand, however…"

"What's the price?" I asked, rolling my eyes.

"This time I want pictures, Harry," Bob said. "I want to see these lamia for myself!"

"You want me to go to a bunch of people and say 'hey, your friend over here is dead, now can you line up so I can get some photographs for my pervert employee?'" I asked sharply.

"Of course not," Bob said. "I'm not _you, _Harry. No need to be insensitive. Just get a few pictures on the sly."

"How about a…" I started to say romance novels.

"Pictures!" Bob insisted.

"Bob, think carefully here," I said irritably before gesturing about the room. "Do you see a barrel anywhere in my vicinity? Is there rope around my hands? Is this a wall behind me or the stairwell upstairs?"

"Umm, your point, Boss?" Bob asked hesitantly.

"My point is that usually when you want to force someone to perform acts that are against their normal values," I explained. "That you have them in a position of extreme need. Now, I can easily do the job myself when I get back from checking out this crime scene. But I will be annoyed and when I'm annoyed, certain entities get less opportunity to get out of the skull or have new romance novels paid to him. Am I making myself clear?"

"Errm, yeah, Harry," Bob said. "So, uh, tailoring a tracking spell, got it. So…uh…"

"Romance novels, right," I said, shaking my head as I headed up the stairs.

Coming up out of the subbasement, I found Molly flipping through the "tome", lounging back on my couch and with Mouse at her feet.

"Get your reading done, padawan?" I asked.

"Yeah," Molly said. "Seems kind of weird, what was the purpose of the whole experiment? Because the result is…strange. Do these things really make people live longer?"

"What's the average life span of a wizard?" I asked.

"Three hundred years," Molly said, shrugging.

"What's the average age of a lamia or bride?" I asked.

"One hundred twenty or so," my apprentice said. "So, wouldn't that make a wizard's aging like, I don't know almost stop?"

"Uh huh," I said. "And what happens when the lamia dies?"

"You…oh," Molly said, realizing. "Right. So, that likes cut things in half for a wizard. But at least you spend a hundred and twenty years looking twenty years old."

"And then pop goes the weasel," I reminded her again.

"Right," she said, scratching her head with a nervous laugh. "Why don't these things get snapped up for breaking the Second Law when they make brides then?"

"It's one of those grey areas," I said pointedly.

"Oh, right, the ones you tell me not to repeat what you say about them in front of other Wardens," Molly noted wisely.

"Anyway, padawan," I said. "We have a crime scene to take in and I'd rather not be interrupted by any cops watching the area."

"Okay, Boss," she said, snapping up and almost smacking Mouse with her long legs before heading down to the lab and grabbing her travel kit.

I'd started the fisherman tackle travel kit for thaumaturgy in order to better organize things in teaching Molly how to set things up while out in the country. Molly had started putting her own together pretty soon thereafter. It looked like she was using one of her dad's old tool chests, but that wasn't all that different from my set up.

Mouse padded along up to my side, blue ribbon still firmly in place.

"How long are you planning on wearing that?" I asked playfully.

The huge mountain of a dog cocked his head up at me as if to say that that was a silly question, of course he meant to wear it all day. Laughing, I reached down to scratch his head and ears as Molly came up the stairs and we moved out toward the Blue Beetle outside, pausing for a brief wave at my landlady as we headed out.

Mouse jumped into the back seat and then Molly and I got in and then the Beetle sputtered, coughed and died with an expulsion of thick grey-black smoke rising up into the sky outside. Behind me, Mouse whined in exasperation.

"Cab?" Molly asked, not at all cheekily.

No apprentice of mine would ever be cheeky when her master's car just died a slow painful death.

"I'll call Mike, get my kit out of the trunk and wait here," I muttered.

We were traveling along in Mike's loaner not long after. Normally, I would go for a cab like Molly suggested, but I was about to go investigating a crime scene. Mortal law tended to frown on people whose authority they didn't recognize breaking into a crime scene and I didn't feel like having anybody on hand that could report dropping me off in the area.

Butters' had had the crime scene reports and given me the address before Murph and I left and it was in the northwest side. That place where backyard barbecues are the reason for being. It wasn't hard to imagine a small group of young-seeming women living here unnoticed. Sharing a rental house was a common thing for college-aged kids to do, and lamia and brides would look like they fit that category.

Granted, my personal experience with supernatural women made me think that they would tend to be a bit more wild and raunchy than most would expect of a good neighbor, but who was I to let supernatural profiling get in the way of the facts?

We parked a few blocks down from the house, at a local grocery store so the car wouldn't attract attention, and so I could grab a few donuts.

"Harry, you really should stop eating those things," Molly lectured as we walked down to the house.

"I'll stop eventually," I said with a shrug.

"What, when you're dead?" my pestering apprentice asked. "The great Harry Dresden, dead from clogged arteries."

"There you go, thinking optimistically," I said, stuffing another donut into my face.

"You know, I think my mom has a good healthy-version of a donut recipe I could try," Molly said thoughtfully.

"I have enough problems on my plate without you adding the Geneva Convention to the list of people on my back," I told her. Molly's version of food made the fandom stories about Akane Tendo plausible.

Molly turned to glare at me and then down at Mouse who was trying too hard not to look amused.

The building the lamia had been killed in was an old two-story building built for the average sized Catholic family. Which meant it was smaller than the Carpenters' house, but bigger than what most nuclear families had.

The crime scene tape was easily visible from two blocks away, as was the plain clothes pair of cops set up to watch just in case the criminal returned to the scene of the crime. I nodded toward Molly and she worked the veil that would get us to and inside the door.

Molly's veils are damn awesome, not to sound like a kid, but they are. My veils are something a bit under what that creep in the alien hunter movie can do, and seeing out of them is like trying to see through cellophane.

Dirty cellophane.

Molly's veils are just shy of perfect and, what's more impressive, you can see out of them just easily as normal for the most part.

I wasn't expecting to learn much from the crime scene, not after forensics had gone over it with a fine toothed comb and practically took a spiritual brillo pad to the supernatural residue of the scene. Still, it would hopefully tell me whether we were dealing with one killer or several.

According to Bob, a bride could get by with a few ounces of lamia blood a week, which was probably the primary difference between them and vampires. For the lamia and company, the blood was a continuation of a supernatural contract that kept them alive and operating and a token was what was necessary.

Vampires simply devoured people.

The first thing we found was that the door had been shoved inward by main force. It lay in the door, half splintered as if it had been struck with a battering ram. I looked along the edges and saw where electrical discharges had scored the edges of the door.

Miss Kabakes had established some wards.

It wasn't too far into the entry way that the first blood stains were found. A couple of hand prints on the wall and floor with small flecks of blood and one largish circle. The lack of a taped outline was intriguing and disturbing at the same time.

Molly shivered at the door.

"Feel something?" I asked.

Molly was sensitive, open to a lot of things about the supernatural world. It made it hard for her to involve herself in outright battle circumstances, but made her very good at a lot of the subtler magic I had trouble with.

"I don't know," she said, rubbing at her arms. "Nothing specific, just this doesn't feel right."

"This kind of thing isn't ever right," I said, scanning about and pointing toward the door and the blood on the floor. "So they came through their first. This was a full frontal assault."

Going deeper into the building we found scratches and scorch marks along the walls. In several places, the wiring in the wall had seemed to burn itself out into the hall way, leaving smoking burned lines along the drywall.

"Electromancer, right?" Molly asked.

"Yep, looks like she fought back," I said, looking along the scene and pointing to some of the scratches. "And swords here."

The framing of one of the next doors we found was rammed in as if struck by a hard object approximately the size of the human skull. So far the scene was showing an assault of overwhelming force with the lamia and her group pretty much forced back by main strength despite the advantages they had to have.

So far, there was no conclusive proof toward either a team or a single badass, though the sheer audacity of it seemed to speak "team" to my mind.

We found more blood stains along the path of destruction, but no bullets yet. Whoever had attacked had made the raid with an old-fashioned eye for procedure: swords, axes, knives, something melee.

I saw Molly start to head upstairs as Mouse sniffed about looking dissatisfied as he probably worked to pick through the dozens of smells that had been through since the crime had happened. If this had been before the forensic team had been on site, I would have asked Mouse to stay outside. Nothing bad about him, but dog's shed and forensic teams were picky about contaminated evidence and the like.

However, the forensic sweep had been done and I had no compunction about letting Mouse do his thing in the house. Though I doubted he'd get much out of it.

In the front living room, I found photographs and photographs and more photographs.

The bleached haired lamia and the girls I presumed were her brides from what looked to be decades of a life together.

I hadn't seen the bodies of the brides, but it looked like there'd been five over the course of the years. A freckle faced girl with plump features dressed out of the late twenties was replaced in later pictures with a young seeming black girl. An Italian seeming woman with striking blonde hair in a picture with the girls dressed in Vietnam era military uniforms was absent from pictures past 1970, and replaced with a dour and serious Vietnamese girl. They'd gone back to the military for the first Persian Gulf, but stayed out of this last one.

Which only made since, they only looked young after all. Most of them had to be getting close to their nineties, if not there, and even with healing like I had, the body gets old.

There were pictures of vacations. Quite a few children and men here and there, reunions with a fairly large grouping of mostly girls and the occasional men. There were a few pictures of older versions of the same men, and women that could be related to the main set of girls in the pictures.

There was one wedding picture, with the Vietnamese woman as the mother of the bride and the others on the sidelines.

Most straights looking at the collection of photos would assume they were of family members rather than the women themselves. Though it was still dangerous to keep such evidence in easy view. Someone perceptive was bound to notice eventually that the same handful of women were in most of the pictures.

It was probably about as normal a life as anybody like us could expect to have. And judging by the most recent pictures, they were still having fun in their twilight years.

Right up until someone put an end to it violently.

"I found where the bodies were, Harry," Molly called out from upstairs.

Looking to Mouse I nodded up to the stairwell and let him move ahead of me to the second floor. I watched the ground and rails, noting the bloody marks that showed where something had been dragged. It wasn't all that much blood, I'd tracked worse into my home on some of my worst days.

We found Molly in one of two bathrooms, standing in the middle of four taped-down outlines that overlapped in places.

She looked toward me and shrugged in confusion, shivering.

"Harry," she said. "I'm feeling…sick…really sick, just standing here."

"Come on out, Grasshopper," I said quickly and frowning before turning back to her. "What does that tell you?"

"Well, they were already dead," she said. "So whatever the stain was had to come from the killer?"

"And to be so strong even after a forensic team had been through?" I asked.

"Magic," she said. "Black magic."

I nodded and looked around at where the bodies had been marked, a very bad thought occurring to me.

"We have to find out how these other three died," I said.

"I kind of thought they'd been stabbed," Molly said.

"My thoughts too," I agreed. "But if so, there isn't enough blood on this scene for four girls stabbed to death even if the blood of one was taken."

"Umm, why would anybody want the brides' blood," she asked. "I thought it was the lamia blood that was special."

"Now there's a question," I agreed, frowning.


	4. Chapter 4

We got some names before we left the house under one of Molly's veils.

Adel Kabakes. Erica Stotz. Mariah Coleson. Lien Ng.

The names were written on a note that I was in the process of crushing in my hand. It was reflexive. I couldn't find what or who had killed them, so I crushed something else instead as I drove Molly, Mouse and myself to MacAnally's in Mike's station wagon loaner.

Lots of M's there.

Maybe I should give up the detective business and take up poetry.

Never heard of anybody murdered by alliteration before.

We headed down into MacAnally's Pub with it's thirteen pillars, thirteen windows and thirteen ceiling fans. Molly waved somewhat self-consciously as she followed along behind me and Mouse to a table in the back where I could see Murphy nursing one of Mac's works of art.

"Hello, Sergeant Murphy," Molly said politely as she sat down at the table.

"Molly," Murphy said, nodding at my apprentice before bending down and ruffling Mouse's hair. "Hello, Mouse, how ya doing?"

He shrugged humbly while managing to show off his ribbon. Murphy didn't seem to notice.

"You saw the crime scene?" she asked.

I nodded and sat down.

"Did you talk to Stallings?" I responded.

"I did," Murphy said. "And we're out of this. Word came down from on high to stomp out our involvement right around the same time Butters was calling me. I, on the other hand, am taking a few days vacation."

"Excellent," I said. "How about Rawlins?"

"Yeah, he mentioned he'd built up a few days," Murphy said.

"You're taking a vacation right now?" Molly asked, confused.

Murphy and I looked toward her with amused and smiling faces before the tiny policewoman looked back up at me.

"She's a precious young amazon, isn't she," Murphy said with a twinkle in her eye.

"Almost straight out of the Cabbage Patch," I confirmed.

"What?" Molly asked looking between the two of us. "What? I'm just surprised that you'd go on vacation while there's someone out there killing people."

That comment almost killed Murphy's teasing mood.

"Vacation is SI code for 'working with the Wizard'," Murphy explained to her. "Still going to need that report, though, Dresden. Stallings thinks we might be able to get it to Homicide in a useful format after a bit of creative translation."

"ABC should hire the lot of SI to write television for them," I said, shaking my head. "You guys have got to be the most accomplished writers of fiction that I've ever heard of."

"We do what we can," Murphy said. "Now, I went ahead and asked around and I think I've got some name for a couple of these 'bridal families' in the...what?"

Molly and I were staring at Murphy in sheer surprise, mouths hanging open.

"Nothing, just a bit surprised," I said. "The community can be a bit iffy dealing with outsiders."

"I haven't had much trouble talking to people since the whole Ordo Lebes thing, actually," she said.

"Really," I said, still a bit surprised though I closed my mouth.

"Apparently I have a reputation," Murphy said, shrugging.

"A reputation?" I repeated.

"I guess your people aren't as stand offish as you think, Dresden," she said.

I took a moment and considered things. Murphy had taken out a werewolf-like thing on national TV, taken a chain saw to a chlorofiend and an ogre, she'd invaded the Winter Court with me, helped me stomp a Black Court scourge, helped investigate and stop a serial killer hunting paranormal women, dated the bodyguard of the archive and even talked down a Gruff with sheer bravado in this very bar. Heck, she was a regular at MacAnally's by now, probably by virtue of the heavenly brews of the establishment, and was on speaking terms with werewolves, wizards, knights of the cross and who knew what else.

"Heck, If I didn't know better," Murphy said. "I'd say I was part of," she started using the finger quotes, "'the community'."

I could actually almost see the bright neon sign over her head with an arrow pointing down at her screaming "part of the community" in large blinking letters.

"Right, anyway," I said, wisely deciding that this might be something that Murphy was happier being in ignorance of. "Who knows, it might just be me they're stand offish with."

That statement was accompanied by a canine huff from my feet and a pair of snorts out of the two women sitting with me.

"Yeah, okay, walked into that one," I said, sighing. "Let's just move on. Molly, give the Sergeant a rundown of what we found at the scene."

"Me?" Molly asked, blinking. "You want me to give the briefing."

"Precious," Murphy said, smiling at me that twinkle in her eye. "Just so precious."

Molly crossed her arms proudly and huffed before I reminded her to get on with the briefing as I listened. She did a good job giving a rundown of what we'd learned and what we were missing from the crime scene. Murphy kept me under watch to make sure I agreed with Molly's interpretation of things, but kept her own snark held off for a moment.

"I'm expecting that file from the Wardens here today, though not sure how that situation would match with this," I said. "And I got a little bit more information on lamia."

"Yeah, but what you're seeing at the crime scene is poking holes in our theory," Murphy noted. "Unless the brides had their blood taken as camouflage."

"No, that doesn't track," I said. "Someone did a powerful bit of black magic in that bathroom, assuming they used the blood for that, it would just about make the blood useless for any other spiritual purposes."

"Damn it, Dresden," Murphy said, frowning. "You know how I feel about things when a perfectly good theory is proven worthless."

"Yeah, I get the same way," I said, matching her expression and tapping my fingers.

We were still discussing possibilities and potential motives when the warden's courier appeared in the pub and started working his way to me.

"Warden Dresden?" he said with a curious combination of nervousness and eagerness. "Your requested file, sir."

I turned and stood to face the young man, taking the package out of his hands. I set that on the table as I pulled out a glove before accepting the paperwork to sign for the young man, who kept swallowing and watching me.

"Thanks, kid," I said, clapping him on the shoulder. "Make sure to get yourself something to eat before you head back out."

"Ye...yes, sir!" he declared, snapping something like a salute as he looked down at my signature and seemed to debate something for a few seconds before walking toward the bar to order some food.

"For a moment there, Boss," Molly said. "I thought he was about to ask for your autograph."

"Oh God," I said, opening the file and starting to read through it. "If the day comes that a Warden asks me for an autograph like a sweating fanboy, then I know the world is about to explode."

"Let's see," Murphy said, moving her chair around to get a look at the file with me. "I thought you said she didn't have any Brides, says here she had four accomplices, all her handmaids."

I leaned in toward the paper she was looking at as close as I could without touching her.

"She assumed she didn't," I said, ignoring the occasional brush of her hair against my skin as we continued to compare notes. "Doesn't seem much reason to go berserk if you have what you need."

I swear, there was nothing but professional behavior between us as we went over the file. All the reaching around and nearly bumping into things was completely innocent. We'd had that conversation, after all.

Molly gave the two of us an exasperated look which Murphy returned with a mysterious trace of apology, and then my apprentice went to go pick up the food from MacAnally.

"Psychotics don't need a reason," the tiny, scary blond reminded me. "Three of her women executed, a fourth, Katarina, given a lifetime imprisonment, and then they walled Bathory herself up in a tower until she died four years later? Guess we know how long a lamia can go without a bride then."

"Looks like," I said as I pulled out the list of victims and started to go over it.

"Boss," Molly said behind us. "Someone else is here for you."

I turned around as Molly set beers down for Murphy and I, along with her own coke, Mac kept a few for the still underaged people that came in. She pointed back behind her as she set down the tray of our sandwiches.

The lamia and her brides didn't have the unnatural beauty of the White Court succubi, or even the Red Court fleshmasks. They didn't have quite the same nearly uniform slender, tall supermodel ideal that most of those women had. Or the otherworldly and eerie beauty of the faerie queens like Mab and Maeve.

They were more like the Alphas.

Their natural builds had, by virtue of whatever law of calorie burning applied to supernatural men and women who weren't wizards, been perfected to best expression of that particular structure. There was a short woman with red hair and a naturally plump figure who probably wouldn't be picked for a magazine, but certainly had more than her share of physical charms. Another woman was skinny without looking emaciated and also clearly having visible muscle tone and despite a pretty much flat chest, there was no question that she was a woman and very lively one at that. Behind them, a girl who might have been called mousy, physically if not in behavior, by some pushed glasses up on her nose which I was certain were there only for show as she shyly made eye contact with several of the men around the bar.

At their head was a woman who could very much have been a twin to Adel Kabakes, save for her short black hair. The women behind her walked with more physical grace and held much more muscle tone than she showed, but there was a clear social presence and emotional grace to this clear lynch pin as she came forward to speak to us.

All four of them were dressed in military uniforms, army I thought. The Kabakes at the front was dressing an office uniform as was the short plump woman. The mousy girl had, for some reason come in wearing at least portions of her dress uniform and the last was wearing fatigues.

Apparently the family tradition of military service continued.

I rose up out of my seat to meet them as they approached, much to Murphy's annoyed and amused shaking of her head at my chivalrous behavior.

"Mr Dresden," the woman at the front said. "I got a phone call from the White Council saying you wanted to speak to my family."

"That's right, Miss...?" I asked bowed and held out my hand.

"Evike Kabakes," she said. "Captain. This is Lieutenant Sharpton and Sergeants Kollan and Janissary."

"Captain Kabakes," I said and then turned toward the table. "This is Sergeant Murphy from the local police, and that's my apprentice, Molly Carpenter."

"Pleased to meet you," Murphy said standing up. "Good to see a few more ladies in uniform."

"Family tradition," Evike said with a pleasant smile, though she left her mouth closed. Probably from long habit to hide the fangs.

"How do you manage to get assigned to the same unit?" Molly asked.

"The families have some influence over such things," she answered. "We couldn't do it otherwise."

We pulled some chairs over and made room for them as I shuffled together the Bathory file and put it diplomatically out of the line of sight.

"Sorry about the mess and appearance," I said then, perfectly aware that I was developing a pretty firm five o'clock shadow. "I was expecting to be given an appointment time. I would have at least shaved ahead of time otherwise."

Someone behind me snorted, but I could tell who.

"The messenger implied there was some urgency, and I was coming in for leave anyway," Evike said.

"We were wondering why they didn't just send you to Evike's grandmother Adel," Sergeant Kollan said, she was the "mousy" girl with the not so mousy attitude. "She's sort of retired here."

I sat up with a very uncomfortable taste in my mouth. I'd had to do this task a couple of times in my life, deliver fatally bad news, and it was never pleasant.

"She's the reason I asked for the meeting," I said. "I have some...bad news. Adel Kabakes died sometime yesterday."

There was a shock in the four women as they turned and looked towards each other, glancing back and forth between each other several times before turning back to face us.

As they were doing that, I glanced towards Molly to see what her reaction was and noted the girl's eyes moving between the four woman as if watching a doubles tennis match. I didn't know how much she'd actually pick up, but I suppose I had to thank my stars that she was here with me when these women were on hand to do this silent conversation.

Evike's mouth was firmly and tightly closed, to the point that I could see the muscles twitching in her cheeks and almost hear the grinding of her teeth.

"There is more," Lieutenant Sharpton asked, the other woman in the office uniform. "Because we'd expect to hear this from her Brides normally."

"Yeah," I said. "They're..all dead. Someone murdered them."

There was another period of meaningful glances, accompanied this time by expressions of shock and clear attempts to clamp down on some extreme emotions before turning back towards us again. One of the ceiling fans above us sparked visibly as Evike twisted her head about sharply and silently, while Janissary splintered the arms of the chair she was sitting in.

"This...this sort of thing doesn't happen to us anymore," Evike said. "Was it some...normal crime?"

And I could tell she didn't believe that.

"It doesn't look like it," Murphy said. "Warden Dresden and his apprentice found traces signs of black magic. We were thinking that it could be a bride whose lamia died?"

"The families take care of their own," Sergeant Janissary snapped.

Evike raised a brief hand and then set it down.

"There have been rogue brides before," she admitted quietly. "I hadn't heard any rumors of one recently, though."

"We spoke to a lost bride only recently," Kollan said. "Evike donated a pint of blood to her."

"You didn't take her in?" I asked.

"She seemed to be taking her loss harder than most, even considering," Sharpton said laying a hand on the lamia's shoulder. "Wasn't interested in being with us, even temporarily. Just fine, I think, Evike wouldn't be healthy supporting four of us full time. That week afterwords was bad enough."

"Do you know of any reason why someone would kill your family and take their blood?" Murphy asked.

Evike shrugged bitterly and opened her mouth completely for the first time, show the sharp canines overlapping her lower teeth in the classic appearance that most people associated with vampires.

"Our blood is as good as anyone else's for a number of purposes," she snapped. Slowly, she got a hold of herself and calmed down looking toward Murphy. "I assume the local morgue has their bodies?"

"The Forensic Institute," Murphy confirmed.

As one, without a sign of the decision, the women stood up and stepped away from the table, pushing in their chairs.

"If there's nothing else we can help you with," Janissary said, moving ahead of Evike protectively.

"Just one thing," I said politely. "In case there is a danger, can you give me the names of the lamia in Chicago?"

They glanced at each other in one of those communicative exchanges.

"There are three young ones in town," Evike said. "Lesya Tsaphas and her daughters, Svetya and Zhenya. Lesya herself is only barely in her forties and they do not pay attention to matters of safety like they should."

"Thanks," I said. "We'll talk to them as soon as we can. Again...I'm...I'm very sorry, I know what its like to lose people."

"Between the two of you, Sergeant, Warden, we expect the killer to face one set of laws or another," she said before looking to the women with her and then turning to leave.

I waited politely for them to finish before turning back toward Molly.

"Well?" I asked.

"What, I'm not Jean Grey," Molly said in protest.

"Well?" Murphy asked.

"Lots of feelings," she said with a sigh. "No words, since I'm guessing you're both wondering if I could eavesdrop on their private phone line. I think they were actively taking turns talking to you though."

"Get the feeling they were telling the truth or hiding anything?" I asked.

"No, not really," Molly said with a shrug. "They felt really sad and angry, but I can see why that would make sense." She said the last with a quite voice.

I nodded and exchanged a look with Murphy.

"Preferences?" I asked.

"I'll get Rawlins tomorrow and talk to some of the bridal families I found," she said. "Maybe they'd heard about a 'rogue bride' that the lamia don't hear about."

"And that leaves me to talk to the lamia," I said.

"Awww, poor baby has to suffer through dealing with gaggles of supermodels," Murphy said with a snort. "Don't let your wrong head do your thinking."

"Hey, there are children present," I protested.

"Oh, don't worry about me," Molly said. "I know a litt..."

"If you don't want one of us to talk to your parents, that sentence doesn't finish," Murphy said sharply.

Molly closed her mouth then and sipped her coke.

"You know I'm not a teenager anymore," she protested.

"That's game plan then," I said, ignoring Molly.

"Sounds like," Murphy nodded. "One question though."

"Yeah?"

"Why the hell does Mouse have a monstrous blue ribbon tacked to his shoulder?" Murphy asked.

"Molly," I said by way of explanation.

"Ah," Murphy said, bending down to ruffle Mouse's head again. "Well he deserves it."

Mouse preened proudly as he got the recognition he'd been looking for at last.

"It's gone to his head," I said. "He's usually a lot more humble."

"Wait a minute," Molly said. "Since when is my name alone reasonable explanation for something?"


	5. Chapter 5

When Mouse and I got the loaner back to the apartment, after dropping off Molly, the Beetle was still gone. There was no word about picking it up on the answering machine someone had gotten me for a gift a while back.

Thought that might just have been because the answering machine tended to do nothing but replay snippets of one of Molly's preferred bands incessantly when it caught a call. Which, I think, coincided with Molly's final attempt to use an Ipod.

I'll give her this, it had been a valiant, if doomed, struggle to stay current with her generation's standards.

In any case, I moved down to the basement after pouring Mouse some kibble.

I replaced my duster with my robe and moved to the trapdoor where the carpet was cut out somewhat sloppily.

I repeat, the individual who did most of the work on my place was no expert and had little understanding of just what he was getting himself into.

Heading down into the subbasement, I regarded the darkness and the candles I knew were there.

"Flickum bicus," I said, calling up a warm glow of candle light as each of them lit brightly around me.

I glanced across the room toward the worktable that held Little Chicago, probably my most ambitious piece of magical crafting. Hell, no probably about it. Here there was a definite attention to detail in the variety of pewter buildings which I had commissioned piece by piece over much of year and since then as buildings were built, destroyed (not necessarily by me) or otherwise altered.

I dropped a pile of romance novels on Bob's shelf and nudged the skull.

"Bob," I said. "Hey, Bob, I got your books."

"About time, Harry," Bob said. "What took you so long?"

"Not now, Bob," I said. "Did you tailor that spell?"

"Yeah," Bob said. "I can give you the particulars whenever you're ready."

"Just a minute," I said, raising my hand. "I want to ask a question."

"Gee, now there's a surprise," Bob said snarkily. "What do you want to ask?"

"If you kill someone before you cast a black magic spell, can they still be considered a sacrifice?" I asked.

"Of course not," Bob said with a huff. "The timing and placement are elements of the whole spell."

"Could you use the blood spilled from a recently dead body as an ingredient in a spell?" I asked.

"Now that's more possible," Bob said. "But it would have to be very quickly after the body died, like in minutes. You could stretch that maybe by using something to preserve the spiritual integrity of the blood, but even then, fifteen minutes, not much more."

I nodded and cupped my chin in a typical wizardly pose of considerate thought.

"Has there ever been a lamia with full magical capability?" I asked.

"No, whatever warlock or warlocks unknown did to them fried their genetic tree's magical potential," Bob said. "Or perhaps just hard-wired it."

"So they can't run full out rituals," I reasoned.

"Yeah, I see you with the Bathory file over there," Bob said. "And black magic in bath tubs. But Bathory wasn't capable of really doing anything with the blood she took. She was just into that sort of thing."

Bob lacks an understanding of human morality. Something has to be pretty damn far gone for him to recognize it as Evil, or pretty damn angelic for him to recognize it as Good. Run of the milling killing frenzies were probably old hat to a spirit out of the Nevernever like him, even if he preferred rampages that tended to leave the victims a little less dead and a little more de-flowered.

"It was a hope," I said, sighing. Well, on to less urgent work until I could think of something better. "Tell me about the tracking spell."

"Right, Boss," Bob said. "The problem won't be the sample per say. Because that's been preserved fairly expertly, even after it hit your hands."

"Bob."

"Anyway, the problem will be in the knife you're looking for," Bob said. "If _it_ has changed. Such as with a new handle wrapping or something similar. If that is the case, the connection might be...fuzzy at best. But I think you can enhance the connection by replacing the lost knife."

"So a piece of bronze and a piece of bone and wrap the bit of leather I have around it?" I asked.

"That should work," Bob said. "And focus on the leather as a part of the knife. Focus on it remembering the knife."

I swear he shrugged. I am not sure how, considering he was only a skull, but I still swear he shrugged.

"Off to Little Chicago, then," I said.

I walked to my shelves to look for a container of the bronze pieces left over from the last time I had to repair my shield bracelet. Then I looked for some of my chicken bones and collected the leather.

I placed these on the building that represented my apartment building and then focused my will into the miniature with the incantation _Reperios. Invenios._

In a pulling twist, my Will dived down into the model until everything was life size around with shimmering, ghost-like images overlaying the pewter trees and buildings that showed how the represented the situation as it currently was. Taking in my surroundings and noting the shades of people passing through the streets in the early evening, I nodded and turned about toward bronze and the leather.

"All right," I said, with a shrug. "Let's see if you're in town."

I thought hard about a bronze knife as I reached out to start the tracking spell, and tried to force the bit of leather to "remember", as Bob had put it, the knife it was part of. Almost instantly, the leather was pulled into a shimmering comet which zipped away from my apartment, drawing me with it as a tracery of silver energy.

I kept track as the spell carried through towards Wrigleyville and started to slow down as it came into a haze of what seemed to be thick, foggy clouds. It was only just possible to keep track of the tracking spell as it pulled into an indistinct building with a weak and tattered threshold on an uncertain street and through a mist filled hallway past a sound of tinkling bells or wind chimes, through a gaping maw of a trapdoor similar to my own.

And here the haze turned thick, cloying and red. Thicker as I got closer to object of my search. That meant bad things, but I couldn't be sure of specifics in the haze around me. Maybe it was used in black magic. Maybe it belonged to a psychopath. Maybe it was just an old, old knife with a history, though even in that case I would have advised against someone owning it. In any case, the feeling of this basement was far from healthy.

It sat in the midst of spiritual morass around me, on a table I could only just discern as being made of wood. I took the features of the knife in mind as precisely as possible, sparing a moment in honor of a fallen friend who might have been highly useful for this purpose.

I slowly started back tracking my way through the building, rising out of the bloody miasma, looking for a clue as to the address.

I heard the musical sound of tinkling again and with it trace whistling of a woodwind or flute sounding weakly through the air around me.

Figures past in the fog about me, but they were moving to much for me to get a fix or look at them as they walked about without realizing I was there. It was more than a little frustrating and I had to settle for leaving the building, and then falling back further until the fog gave way and I was able to trace around it to get a feeling for the general whereabouts of the house that held the knife.

Frowning I released the spells and let my mind be pulled back into my body with a heavy breath.

"You literally meant 'fuzzy' didn't you, Bob?" I said.

"Pardon?" Bob asked.

"The spell," I responded. "I got to the knife, but there's some sort of fog out something like three blocks in every direction."

"I suppose that makes sense," Bob said slowly.

"Bob?" I said, drawing out the name.

"I don't know, Harry," Bob said. "I originally thought 'fuzzy' would mean it would just fall apart before it got you all the way there, but I guess it could leak essence enough to make a psychic fog too."

"At least I got a general neighborhood," I said shrugging. "And a bit more."

"A bit more?" Bob asked. "What does that mean?"

"It means the knife is a murder weapon," I said. "At least that's what I expect it to mean when it turns your psychic fog red. I was half-willing to overlook 'stolen' for someone who seems to be part of the group, but if I'm looking at a possible homicide..."

"You're a Warden," Bob reminded me.

"Which covers the Laws of Magic," I said. "Not death by sharp, pointy object."

"Oh, right," Bob said. "Well, I guess the first step is to find out why the knife is screaming bloody murder."

"Yeah," I agreed. "Looks like we do. At least I have results early for once."

****

The next morning faced an invasion of the night of the living breakfast as Molly attempted to torture me with her attempt at one of her mother's recipes, the aforementioned "healthy donuts". I asked for some coffee "to dip with" and wisely let Mouse devour the donuts while Molly was looking in another direction.

At least there's one individual who likes Molly's cooking.

"So while you're going around talking to these vampire-chicks," Molly said. "You want me to do research into your other case?"

"Congratulations," I said. "You're moving up in the world. You get to do solo legwork."

"In a library! 'Find recent murders in this area,'" she said, mocking my tone of voice. "That'll be a few hours looking through old newspapers. Why don't you ask Murphy to do it?"

"Because I already asked her to look into Miami for me and we're both trying to solve a multiple-murder we know for certain happened," I reminded her.

"Oh, right," Molly said. "Fine, but this would be a lot easier if we didn't short out every computer we came close to."

"I know, Grasshopper," I commiserated with her. "I know. Good luck."

I moved to grab my duster and made sure the blasting rod was tied into it before heading out toward Mike's loaner to drive out to the first of the three addresses.

Svetya lived in a house along the Alley where one of the most recent goth explosions had erupted big time. Her mother was, by Evike's word, 'barely in her forties', which meant that Svetya was probably between my and Molly's age.

Twenties in truth as well as advertising this time.

I found the place amongst a small horde of baseball fanatics heading up the street from cars parked miles away to head for the baseball stadium. The house itself was done up for Halloween and blaring a song about bodies and floors loud enough to be heard from half a block a way. Some of the baseball pilgrims were slowing down at the house to nod their heads in time to the music and receiving refreshments from the girls outside.

Molly would have fit in with them.

Black jeans, black t-shirts, artful ripping, fishnet stalkings and piercings, tattoos and dyed hair galore. Two of the girls sat in chairs with coolers to pass out drinks to the passing fans and chat with them for a bit.

Neither of them was Svetya.

And you might wonder how I knew this right away.

It was because Svetya and a fourth girl were engaged in particularly focused and heavy exploration of each other on a blanket in the yard, in full view of the public. Up to and including Svetya biting down into her friend's neck with her fangs and eliciting a giggling shriek. Flecks of white and green rose up along the girl's skin as the lamia took her requirement. Followed by the the girl sinking her human teeth into Svetya's neck.

Because I'm a highly trained investigator, I noted that they both seemed thoroughly excited by the bites. Very thoroughly excited. Several other people seemed to notice as well and were marching the children along at a hurry.

It was such a pity that they kept their clothes on the entire time.

Did I seriously just write that down? Have to remember to remove that later.

I looked down at Mouse, and idly noted that the blue ribbon was still there...and still somehow in excellent condition.

"If I hear anything along the lines of 'lesbian vampire'," I muttered to him.

He gave me a perfectly innocent look and cocked his head to the side as if trying to figure out what I was talking about.

One of the two sighed and shook her head as she turned back toward the two making out girls and gave a very firm look which was returned with a pair of bloody stuck out tongues. The other girl at her side looked over and tapped the first's shoulder with a permissive smile.

My mind filled in the dialogue.

"Can you two get a room? You're embarrassing us."

"Nyah!"

"Oh let the newlyweds be."

It probably wasn't that exactly, but that was close enough to the gist of it from what I could tell.

Walking up to the girls brought the permissive one's eyes up toward me with a ready, shiny smile that seemed strange in an outfit that most would equate with a moody, emo attitude. Her smile was interrupted with a surprised "o" and she reached quickly for the cooler and to grab a soda.

"Mr. Dresden, sir!" she said.

"Excuse me," I said. "Do I know you?"

"Umm, I think I saw you once...a while back," she said. "I was at Splattercon with a friend."

"Ah, you were dressed as a vampire," I said, nodding as I recognized her with a little frown. "Sorry about your friend."

"That's all right, sir," she said. "I gu...guess it could have been worse."

Looks toward vampire girl, a look back:

"Do you know him?"

"He's a good guy."

These girls may have been telepathic, but the freaking wore their hearts on a sleeve. I didn't need Molly here to read them.

"How did you learn about me?" I asked her, borrowing one of the chairs and sitting down to chat as she handed me a coke. Svetya and her friend walked over to join us, watching me suspiciously.

As she came closer, I could tell that she was pregnant and showing enough to make it hard to hide. That might have explained why she felt horny enough to make out in public in broad daylight with another girl. Don't start on me, I've heard it makes women hornier, but I ain't exactly had much practical experience with the matter, what do I know?

Then again, she was in her twenties and that was probably explanation enough.

"M...my friend was killed by a movie monster," she said. "So I poked around and started hanging out at Bock's Books and they told me about you, sir. You're the Warden here right? That means your a magic cop, you make things safe from the monsters?"

"Sort of kid," I agreed. "So, mind if I ask your names?"

Ideally, that's what being a Warden was, but it was a bit more complicated than that.

The other three looked toward the chatty one, apparently content to let her do the talking while they stared at me tried to figure out if I was a danger or not. Two of them reached slowly for knives they probably thought were hidden.

"I'm Twilight," the talkative girl said.

"Oh, right," I said. "Of course you are."

What other name would a twenty-something vampire fan use?

"No, seriously," she said. "Parents are kinda hippie-ish."

"Ahh," I said in understanding. "And them?"

"The lovebirds are Svetya and Farah," she said, pointing to the two girls that had just been aggressively enjoying each other.

I noticed that the bite mark on Farah was very elegant and precise, the two fang pricks that you see in movies. By comparison, Farah had turned the flesh of Svetya's shoulder and neck into hamburger around the bite, which was pretty normal for one human biting another. The thickness of white and green flecks and circles about their necks said that this was a frequent occurrence for the two. Comparatively, the same blood-marks on Twilight and her other friend were on the arms.

Recreational biting.

I wonder if lamia can get sick from too much partaking of their brides.

"And my overprotective friend here is Dana."

"The Gatekeeper?" I asked dryly.

"I've never heard that one before," the woman said, finally talking.

I smiled at her briefly and then turned back to Twilight.

"I'm glad you didn't find a real vampire to turn yourself over to," I told her.

"Well, umm, they say you burned them all, sir," the girl said.

"If only, kid," I said. "I'd do just about anything to take those creeps out of the game for good."

"Sir, why is your dog wearing a blue ribbon?" Twilight asked.

I looked over at Mouse who sat there with a proudly rigid posture.

"He just got promoted to Inspector General," I said smirking.

"And what are you doing here, Mr. Wizard?" Farah asked.

"You are in no way old enough to know about that show," I noted.

"Reruns," she said, flushing in embarrassment.

I smirked and turned toward Svetya.

"Someone killed Adel Kabakes and her brides," I told them quietly.

"All of them?" Svetya said dismayed. "They were talking about Lien taking care of my younger sister."

"By my calculations, Adel had a good twenty or thirty years left on her clock," I noted. "Why make the change now?"

"Because my sister is going to be getting old enough to need her own full nest soon, she's only got one, maybe two brides right now?" Svetya said. "And Lien has...had at least sixty years left."

"Have you heard any rumors recently?" I asked, noting the fact that Svetya wasn't up on her family's recent activities.

"No," Farah said. "Who would attack Adel? She and hers have been military off and on for eighty years. She's tough, even when she's so old."

"Have you heard of any ritual that would need a lamia's blood, or the blood of her brides?" I asked.

"Not really, no," Svetya said. "I haven't really cared about that old history stuff."

"You'd rather flaunt the whole Carmilla image," I noted.

I did not say "lesbian vampire". I said "Carmilla".

There is a difference.

"Carmilla" is classic gothic literature.

"Lesbian vampire" is something you get on the back of DVDs filmed with grainy pictures and lots of huffing and puffing rather than dialogue.

"Hey, it's people like you and us that know real vampires are mostly very disgusting creatures," she noted.

"Whatever the case," I said. "If you girls can go somewhere to hide away for a bit, that would probably be best."

"Whatever," Dana said, shrugging. "We're fine. We're fucking She-Hulk here."

"And Adel and her people were apparently She-Hulk with eighty years of experience and combat training," I reminded her.

"Oh, right," Dana said, biting her lip.

I stood up.

"Your mother lives this way, right?" I pointed off over my shoulder.

"They won't be home right now," Dana said. "They run a pub a few blocks away. The Snowflake Falls."

Something told me that the Tsaphas manipulated cold and ice.

"Thanks," I said.

"Mr. Dresden," Svetya said. "Please don't tell my family about...this."

She pointed to her stomach.

"I'm trying to keep it private for now," she explained. "Surprise them later."

That might explain why she wasn't aware what was going on with her sister.

"Might I ask why, if it's not too much trouble?" I asked.

"Because her mother is an old fashioned bitch," Farah said. "And insist we find a man to get busy with, like we need..."

Twilight and Dana leveled a look at her.

"Like Svetya and I need that," she huffed, giving the other two brides an apologetic look.

"And the baby," I asked, probably pressing to far, but curiosity drove me on.

"Artificial insemination," Svetya said. "Isn't it a wonderful modern world...well, for those of us not strong enough to short anything we look at funny."

I frowned at her and started to walk away.

"Be careful, Mr Dresden, sir," Twilight called out after me enthusiastically.

I looked down to see where Mouse padded at my side.

"I don't have fans," I told him. "Tell me I don't have fans. I'm not turning into some sort of nasal geekfest for young wizards and supernatural creatures in Chicago. If anything, you should have fans, you even have the blue ribbon to prove it."

Mouse panted a bit and then gave what I assumed was his agreement to my assessment by giving his head a little nod-like shake.

I would have gone back to the loaner car, but given where I had to park it and the chances of finding another parking space after leaving the one I had taken, walking was the better choice.

Along the way, I stopped at a pay phone and took out the cell phone number for my other client, getting ready to call it. The phone rang on the other side and Ms. Agallon's voice came from the other end.

"Mr. Dresden," she said. "This is a surprise. I thought I made it clear to your apprentice that the information she gave me was adequate to my needs."

"My apprentice did what?" I asked sharply.

"She told me that you had the location of the knife narrowed down to a small area," she said. "I can take it from here."

I smacked my forehead and sighed. It was a novice mistake, both mine and Molly's. Molly had probably assumed that Ms. Agallon was supposed to know everything because she was the client. Meanwhile, I had assumed Molly would understand me perfectly.

"There's more to this than you told me," I said. "You know that if there's a crime involved here, I have to report my situation to the police."

"It's not your business any longer, Mr. Dresden," she said. "I will have the remainder of your fee delivered to you."

And with that she hung up.

Grimacing and shaking my head all the way to the Snowflake, I first pulled out of my grumbling trance when I noted the sound of Mouse growling low in his throat as we came near the pub.

I stopped and looked down at the huge hound and then looked up toward the door of the pub as it opened to let out a young seeming woman with beautiful black hair and a broom in one hand before she started sweeping up the front stoop. She glanced over at me and nervously down toward my growling dog, who was looking around as if trying to pinpoint already what was making him feel so on guard.

And that's when the stone column next to the girl erupted in a shower of stone as the report of a high-powered rifle finally reached our ears.


	6. Chapter 6

It was immediately clear that the black-haired girl with the broom was not merely human when she moved and moved with the inhuman speed I had always found characterized a number of supernatural creatures. She was across the street in a flash and moving toward the direction of the rifle fire.

Whoever was firing didn't seem much slower as two more bullets were placed in her tracks before the edge of a building got in the assailant's way.

In that time, I looked past up the skyline to see a figure kneeling on a rooftop some distance away. Clearly our sniper.

I glanced toward the sound of an opening door at the pub's entrance and started to call out a warning, but Mouse was already there, pushing with his bulk at the women that had looked to be coming outside to see what was happening and probably to help. He had things mostly in control allowing me to turn back to scene at hand.

The black-haired girl with the broom was looking around a corner of an alley looking for a path up to the shooter. She was answered with another sharp report of rifle fire. She gave an imperious look back toward the pub and then grimaced on seeing Mouse there, pushing people back inside.

For my part, I moved forward as well, staying on the edge of the scene as it unnoticed by the sniper in his or her tunnel vision. I heard shots fired several more times, and the call of police sirens in the distance, before I got a good line of sight that was close enough for me to try what I wanted to do.

Without my staff, this was going to be tricky, but I'd used it before to grab my staff and yank it towards me, and this was pretty much the same sort of thing.

Above me, the sniper was angling the rifle, apparently trying to track the high speed motions of the black-haired girl. Or perhaps any bride or lamia that had come past Mouse somehow. They were not aware of me in the least, and so they weren't prepared when the rifle was suddenly jerked from their hands and tossed firmly through the air with a simple cry of "_Forzare_" and an extension of my Will.

The figure, a woman dressed all in black, with a full facial mask, glared down at me and then leaped across the yards in pursuit of the rifle I'd taken out of her hands. It was like something out of a Japanese cartoon, roofhopping I'd heard it called, and clearly placed the woman in the bounds of the supernatural.

I reached out again, focusing hard in an attempt to make up for the lack of my staff, and shouted _Forzare_ again, sending the leaping flying straight up into the air and cutting off her leap after the rifle. She flipped at the peak of her passage and landed back unsteadily on another building before running at blinding speed in the other direction as a black-haired figure leaped up onto the rooftops nearby.

The newcomer, the girl with the broom from before, watched the fleeing assassin and shook her head before looking down at me.

"Thank you, wizard," she said.

"Hey, it's what I'm in town for," I said, shrugging.

"And what are you here for?" she asked.

"Would you believe to warn you that someone's killing lamia and brides?" I asked.

"I seem to have gotten that impression," the woman said with a twitching of her mouth as she jumped down to the ground to face me. "Kate Benneck, bride to Lesya Tsaphas, and I assume you are Warden Dresden?"

She said this with a dignified, well-practiced curtsy.

"That's me," I agreed. I glanced toward where the sniper had been.

That attack was out of character with the other. Shots fired from nearby rooftops tended to make it impossible to get use out of the death or blood or what not for magical purposes. Which meant that it had been merely an effort of elimination.

The fact that it was firearms rather than melee was also telling.

Kate and I made our way back to the pub and I found that she was rather reticent on the subject, protesting that she was sure she didn't know why someone would be out to kill her or any of her friends. When we reached the pub, it was to find a pair of police cars and a growing presence that my presence only seemed to make more wary.

From where I stood, give my rendition of events to a uniform, I watched the other woman of the tavern along with its customers. Mouse padded over to my side, hackles still raised and manner still tense. I took my lead from him and kept a close eye on things.

Lesya and Zhenya were easy to pick out by their resemblance to each other and Svetya. Both dressed much more conservatively, with long sleeved silk shirts most likely designed to conceal the bite marks on their arms. From what I could tell, Lesya was a friendly if somewhat dazed and spacey woman. I got the impression that she might have been partaking of her own wares, meaning the alcohol, and spoke with a slow consideration, as if measuring each of her responses carefully.

In some part, I assumed it was due to the police and her desire not to be picked out as a creature out myth and legend, but there was an airy distractedness that was beyond that.

Zhenya was much more excitable, visibly no older than sixteen years old and standing with a cute brunette of about the same age that was probably one of her brides. She fidgeted with her hands and glanced around as she gave her story, repeatedly asking if everybody was okay despite the fact that she could that they were.

Kate was content to let the others do the talking and explaining, simply nodding and confirming what other people said while hanging in the background.

"Dresden," a familiar and unwelcome voice noted from behind me.

"Detective Sergeant Greene," I said turning around. "What are you doing here. I thought you had bigger fish to fry."

"Family the deceased came to demand the bodies of the case I'm working on," Greene said. "A bunch of twenty somethings with just enough money to make an annoying stink. Not sure how they got contacted."

"Shouldn't you have done that yourself?" I asked. "Or are you still bending rules?"

"You'd know all about bending rules, wouldn't you Mr. Dresden?" Greene asked. "Can you tell me what happened here?"

"Shall I say it five times now and get it over with?" I asked as Mouse watched him.

"Let's start with one time," he said.

"All right," I said. "I was coming here to speak to the Tsaphas."

"Any particular reason?" Greene asked, noting this down in his notebook.

"A client thought they might be in danger," I said. "I was hired to investigate."

It was as good a reason as any to describe my warden duties.

"Was this client specific on the nature of the danger?" he asked.

"Unfortunately not," I said. "They seem a bit vague on the details right now."

"What happened when you got here?" he asked.

"Someone took a shot at Miss Benneck," I noted. "My dog went to block the door so that no one else could come out."

"Smart dog," Greene noted, glancing down at Mouse. "I suppose the blue ribbon isn't for nothing."

Mouse paused in his directionless wariness for a moment to give a dog smile and preen before dropping back into wariness.

"What happened next?" Greene asked.

"We took cover," I said. "And the sniper took a few more shots and then ran."

"You didn't pursue?" Greene asked, arching an eyebrow. "That doesn't sound characteristic of you."

"They were gone too fast for me get on their tail," I said honestly.

"Do you have any idea what may have been the motivation?" he asked.

I considered saying it was probably a hate crime, which was half-honest. But if my report to Murphy was going to be filtered on to homicide, I didn't want to leave clues that it came from me. It would poison the information.

"Not really," I said. "My client's been vague like I told you. I was just supposed to give them a heads up and warn them."

"Have you considered that your client might be part of this?" he asked.

"I've considered it," I admitted. "But so far there's no evidence to support it."

"Who is your client?" Greene asked.

"That's confidential," I insisted. "And until I've got evidence that they're involved, I can't really tell you anything."

Besides, how the hell would he question "the magical and straight communities of Chicago"?

"I've heard rumors that you maintain communication with Molly Carpenter," he said.

"She's the daughter of a friend and my apprentice," I said. "Did you and Father Forthill have a nice conversation after the last time you spoke to Molly? Did you want a repeat performance."

He frowned again.

It couldn't have been pleasant for either department or Greene personally to discover that he'd be illegally pressuring a girl whose family retained a respected priest with Vatican contacts as a lawyer. It was probably about the same as discovering you'd arrested a girl for a trumped up charge only to learn that she was a senator's daughter.

"She's your apprentice, as in an apprentice wizard?" he asked, lips twitching in restrained amusement.

"That's right," I said, shrugging.

"Speaking of which," he said. "I haven't heard anything about magic in your statement here this time."

"What can I say, sniper from a city block away," I answered shrugging. "Not much use for magic there."

"I see," Greene said. "Let's go over this again."

Last time Greene decided to interview me, Murphy showed up to end the repetitive questioning.

This time I had no such luck.

By the time that Greene was, well, not satisfied, but at least convinced that I had nothing to do with the shooting, it was getting past morning and into the afternoon. He shook my hand and moved off irritably.

Then I put out a little Will and felt a brief, irritating shock as the bug Greene had planted somewhere on my person shorted out.

And I was finally alone with the mother and the younger sister of the Tsaphas family and their brides.

I walked into the mostly empty pub, Mouse relaxing finally as the women moved about the room, engaged in various tasks.

"Hello, Warden Dresden," Lesya said, coming up to me and smiling broadly as she stared dazedly at my shoulder. "I understand you came to warn us?"

"Yeah," I said, "but looks like I was a bit too late. Miss Benneck was..." I paused to look around for her and frowned as it became apparent that the other woman was nowhere to be seen.

"Kate has business to attend to," Lesya said airly. "How may I help you?"

"Well, I'm here to help you," I said. "Maybe you might know if there is someone that might want to kill Miss Benneck?"

"No one could want to kill, Kate," Lesya said with a vacant laugh. "She is a perfect dear. She's been a great help to me recently."

Zhenya came up to my side then and leaned down close to whisper into my ear.

"Mother and my older sister had been arguing and now she refuses to speak to us," she whispered, a trace of anger in her voice. "And...Mother...gets like this. Kate's been helping the last few months and it's been getting better."

I took stock of the population in the room around me. Besides Zhenya and Lesya, there were four other women.

"This is my first bride, Jaelle," Zhenya said, taking over the conversation for her mother. "She's from the Doukas family. We've been friends forever."

I recognized the name of one of the bridal families in the area that Murphy had passed on to me.

"Hello Mr. Dresden," she said with a bright smile, pushing back a lock of brown hair. She looked like a younger, more cheery version of Dana from Svetya's group.

She was all of sixteen years old, but I could already see her taking me in and analyzing me as a threat. Sixteen and already a professional bodyguard. It looked like the baby warrior syndrome wasn't just limited to the Wardens. I also noted that Dana wasn't as smooth as this younger girl was, apparently this was a teen that took the family business seriously.

"Those are Maya, Selene and Kyra," Zhenya added, pointing out each of the other women who paused in their tasks about the bar to woodenly nod at me with a minimum of politeness.

Zhenya watched the exchange and pursed her lips together, facing a long term frustration with a strained situation. Apparently, Lesya's melancholy was catching to her brides.

"Is it true that Granny Adel is dead?" Zhenya asked sadly after turning away from her mother and her mother's brides.

"I'm afraid so," I said, suppressing an urge to snicker at the idea of the bleached-haired young-seeming woman being referred to as "Granny". "Have you seen anything recently that was strange?"

Jaelle shuffled nervously from where she sat and looked toward Zhenya.

"There's nothing strange in the neighborhood, Mr. Dresden," Selene, a tall woman who looked like she was a cousin to Jaelle and probably was. "Everything has been rather quiet."

"Well..." Zhenya started to say.

"There is no problem here," Maya noted. "I'm sure this assassin is just a passing problem and you've managed to scare them away."

I looked over at Zhenya and Jaelle, who had rather helpless expressions on their faces. There was something going on here and I frowned, taking in the semi absent look on Lesya's face, and noting that there was a calculating gleam behind her eyes that was not vacant at all."

"All right," I said. "Well, I might come back a little later if there are more questions to ask."

"Certainly, Warden Dresden," Lesya said with a broad smile as she stood up with me. "Please feel free to visit us any time."

I nodded and started out of the pub, pausing to turn around.

"Oh, I talked to Svetya earlier today," I said. "And I might be breaking a promise here, but she's wanting to give you a surprise. That's why she's not talking to you."

"Thank you, Warden," Lesya said. "But I think I know my own ungrateful children better than you."

I shrugged and headed out into the street with Mouse.

"Boy would I like to have had Molly in there," I told Mouse, who nodded in response. "Did you figure out what was driving you crazy?"

He huffed in frustration.

"Yeah, I know the feeling," I said. "I guess it's time to meet Murphy and Rawlins."

****

Murphy was walking out of her house as I pulled up on the loaner and crossed her arms with a grim look that said she'd learned something I wasn't going to like. I got out of my car and grabbed the report I'd made up for Murphy and let Mouse out past me.

"What's up? The bridal's have something to say?" I asked.

"Something like that, Rawlin's inside, but I wanted to get this done before we have ears on us," Murphy said. "The client who hired you to find that knife, what was her name?"

"Miss Agallon," I said. "And I was going to tell you about her anyway, she seems involved in something for you to handle."

Murphy nodded.

"There was a series of murders in Miami fifteen years ago," Murphy said. "Woman found bled out. Mostly homeless and runaways, but four households of woman about twenty years of age. A Diana Agallon was listed as a suspect."

She handed over a photograph on fax paper. It looked like the Miss Agallon that had hired me save with a fresh wound across her cheek instead of a scar.

"Well, hell," I said.

"The Agallon family here say that she's been...strange ever since," Murphy said. "Refusing to join a new 'nest' as they call it, begging blood off of established lamia and moving from city to city. 'Letting herself age' they said."

"And?" I asked.

"Three dead lamia nests in cities she's been in," Murphy said. "Did you touch her?"

"Afraid not," I said.

"She could be a practitioner then," Murphy said. "Couldn't she."

"And she recently decided she got everything she needed from me," I said. "And ended my service."

"Really, you gave her information before talking to me?" Murphy asked.

"No, I failed to warn Molly not to divulge information to the client in this case," I said.

"Sun Tzu says the first time a troop makes a mistake it's the commander's fault," she noted shaking her head and looking down toward Mouse. "Hey, you still have the ribbon."

Mouse smiled back at her.

"Let's get inside and cross reference with Rawlins," I said. "See if there's a way to salvage this mess."


	7. Chapter 7

Rawlins was in Murphy's dining room drinking a cup of tea drawn from Murph's monstrous collection of tea blends. There were some notebooks on the table and assorted hand written statements being organized. A chalkboard had been pulled out from somewhere and an organizational flow chart was in the process of being put together.

The tall man was speaking on the cell phone, though, on seeing me he quickly ended the phone call.

"Butters looked into the Jane Does," he said to Murphy. "Hey, Dresden, bringing your hocus pocus to the table finally?"

He smiled playfully. Rawlins had seen enough of the supernatural to be respectful of what the "hocus pocus" could do, but he still tended to be a bit of a wise ass about it.

What can I say, I seem to bring it out in people.

"What's the word?" Murphy asked as I sat down and she went to the kitchen to prepare me a cup of tea.

Mouse lumbered up to my side and sat down next to me, opening his mouth in one of his usual doggy smiles.

"There have been a few Jane Doe stabbing victims," Rawlins said. "Mostly they're thinking runaways and vagrants, but there is an unusual number of young victims."

"Any particular district?" I asked.

"Scattered about," Rawlins said. "So either it's just coincidence and we're being paranoid..."

"Or someone's learned from history," I said. "How'd it go down in Miami?"

"Same thing," Murphy said. "Over the course of several days, those four households were murdered with the exception of our suspect, your ex-client. In the course of the investigation, they found the bodies of hundreds of girls, some at least two years old. The theory is that it was going on for quite some time with the homeless, runaways and vagrants before those last households. But..."

"But?" I asked.

"Some of the bodies were never found," Rawlins said. "A...Rina Enika. One of these families had just taken her in, a lost...what do you call them? Blood dolls?"

"Bride," I said. "Probably best not to use the 'blood doll' term. I don't think the lamia or brides would care for using a term the Reds use."

Rawlins, Murphy and, hell, even Mouse turned to look at me very closely.

"What?" I asked.

"You suggested something diplomatic," Murphy noted.

"What, I can't be diplomatic?" I asked, affronted. "I'm extremely diplomatic. I'm just brimming with diplomacy."

"Of the Admiral Perry variety," Murphy said.

"Gunship diplomacy is still diplomacy," I protested.

"What did you get from the supernatural supermodels?" Rawlins asked with a smirk.

I gave them a rundown of the sisters and their mother and watched as Murphy filled them in on the chart and made a note of the unknown sniper.

All of us there turned to look at the word sniper and considered the other attacks and deaths already listed.

"What was it we said in the Ordo Lebes thing?" I asked idly.

"One of these things is not like the others," Murphy responded.

"One of these things is not the same," Rawlins agreed, catching on to the commentary.

"I'd say someone there used Black Magic," I said, turning to look at Mouse. "You got that much, right, Mouse?"

The dog cocked his head to the side as if to say "of course, what do you take me for?"

"You said the nests were killed over days," I asked.

"Uh huh," Murphy said. "And we've got three target locations, the two Tsaphas houses and the Kabakes family in town."

"The Kabakes are all military," Rawlins said. "With...impressive service records. They wouldn't be my first choice of target."

"Neither would the older set," Murphy said. "Harry?"

"The Kabakes are visitors in town," I reminded them. "They'll be staying in a hotel, and our perpetrator, at least one of them, is a practitioner."

"No threshold," Murphy said.

"Not as much in the way of normal security, either," Rawlins added.

SI had gotten a full report from me on thresholds and how to strengthen them. Included were a few minor rituals and measures that could be taken by any individuals. At least one SI detective had built a small, decorative moat around his house and kept it running.

"It would be my first target," I said, shrugging. "Wish I had brought the Bathory file."

"You and me both," Murphy said. "This is looking like a copy cat, though from what you've said a lamia can't be our practitioner. We're missing something."

"I'll get the report to Stallings," Rawlins said. "He'll get it to homicide."

"I'll get Molly," I said, nodding.

"My wife and kids like the cat's new color, by the way," Rawlins noted with a smirk.

"Purple?" Murphy asked.

I shrugged and shook my head.

"Hopefully, nothing happens," Murphy said, returning to business. "Let's all be quietly on hand tonight at the Kabakes' hotel. Any equipment suggestions?"

"Brides are strong and fast, but they don't heal like vamps or ghouls," I said. "Bring some chalk and something to cut a finger on in case you have to hold off our warlock. But with the brides around, that's not likely to help too much."

"Better than nothing," Murphy said. "Any clue how many we're looking at?"

"Nothing I can prove," I said. "It feels like a team thing."

"I agree with the wizard," Rawlins noted. "Given the first attack."

"Full frontal assault on supernaturals means either someone real badass or a team," Murphy agreed. "And I'm with you guys, so probably a team."

"I didn't know you were into dog shows, by the way, Dresden," Rawlins noted.

* * *

I found Molly at my office with her compiled research on the Wrigleyville area and any weirdness going on there...which was apparently nothing.

Made sense she'd strike out if Murphy was right, but you'd think she'd at least have gotten something weird just from the fact that something weird was usually going on everywhere.

"I didn't find anything in the library," she said. "But..."

"Murphy thinks they've been hitting different areas of the city anyway," I said. "Got your gear on hand? We've got somewhere to be tonight."

I probably shouldn't have interrupted her, but between the lack of a report and the information she'd passed out, I was just a bit annoyed.

"I've got my trouble kit," she said. "But..."

"Good," I said and then frowned. "Did you speak to Miss Agallon?"

"Yes, I told her what you told me," she said. "And about that fog..."

"Okay, this is my fault, let be clear on that," I said. "From now on, don't say anything to the client that I haven't told you can say. It looks like our client is our suspect in the murder case."

"Oh! I didn't know, I mean," Molly said as she gasped and covered her mouth with both hands.

Murphy was right, she was a precious little girl much more innocent than she liked people to know she was.

"But I found out something," she said then.

"You found something," I said, considering. "Where?"

"I...uh went to the neighborhood," she said.

"Molly, which part the 'dangerous and reckless' speech did you not understand?" I asked.

"I wasn't being reckless," she protested. "I was careful, and...well, the psychic fog thing isn't in your tracking spell."

"Really?" I asked, interested.

"Yeah, the entire area is just psychically...fuzzy," she said.

I considered that briefly.

A lot of Nevernever predators wouldn't like to hunt in such an area and it would keep them off. Sensitives like Molly wouldn't want to be there either. And it would minimize what divination could do, I could follow the tug, but everything was clouded. It also explained why Mouse had problems in the area. The warlock was in the area but the psychic "fuzz" would dilute their presence make it hard to pin down.

And if it was low enough, it would take someone like Molly to feel it.

But how did that explain the lamia, they should have noticed.

"It's like one of your spells," she said.

"One of my spells?" I repeated.

"Yeah, when you used to leak a whole lot of power all over the place?" she said.

Efficiency was a problem I had been working on a while. But apparently, someone had found a practical use for their inefficiency.

"Okay," I said. "That's good work, Grasshopper, but next time, suggest the field trip and don't just take it. If you get in over your head, it's good for someone to know where you are."

"Right, Boss," she said proudly. "Umm...what are we doing tonight?"

* * *

Evike Kabakes and her little nest had taken a suite in the local Embassy Suites. It implied some level of resources, but not the uber-funds available to the White Council or most of the vampire courts and other old powers. They were somewhere on the fifth floor, and keeping mostly to their own rooms.

There was a restaurant in the lobby and a nightclub attached to that. The techno-music occasionally filtered in through the halls as customers came and went from it, but for the most part, the cacophony was filtered away from the building. I'd glanced in it momentarily and saw a psychodelic fountain in the middle of the dance floor, the water refracting the light of numerous colored bulbs all over the place. I stepped back out before I could accidentally hex anything delicate and attract attention, but the fountain disturbed me.

Reminded me of the bath tub in Granny Adel's place.

I'd seen at least three SI cops other than Murphy and Rawlins, who were keeping a low profile in the hotel lobby and restaurant. The other cops had just "happened to be in the area on their night off" so we had some level of back up just in case we were right. Molly, Mouse and I were in a room as we monitored a playdoh detection net for the intrusion of our practitioner.

Granted our quarry was capable of getting in a lot of different ways, up to and including leaping to an upper floor window and coming in there, but they didn't know that we were there. Heck, we'd even managed to avoid attracting attention from the lamia and her brides from what we could tell.

And then the first hit of a twitch came on my net while Molly was out grabbing us some sodas from the overpriced in-hotel inconvenience store.

I reached for the phone and dialed up Murphy's number.

"Incoming," I said, simply. "Looks like coming in ground floor."

"Got it Dresden," Murphy said. "Get down here and give us a shut down then."

"On my way," I noted.

Mouse and I left the room, and headed for the stairs, part of me wondering what was taking Molly so long.

"At least she's out of the trouble if she's upstairs when things go down," I said with Mouse's agreement.

I was at Murphy's side in a couple of moments, mind searching out for the practitioner that should have been hitting the lobby any moment now.

"Well?" I asked.

"No hit squads yet," she said. "And no one that fits your description filtering through, where's Molly?"

"She was getting us sodas and...oh, there she is," I said, noting where my bleached-haired apprentice was waving vigorously at me with a coke in hand and a...ergh...pepsi in the other as she stood next to another girl, who seemed somewhat familiar.

"Good grief, what is she trying to do," Murphy wondered as she turned to look at the girl herself. "Anybody who sees that is going to be on to her out of sheer curiosity."

The girl with Molly turned, saw us and smiled in a friendly manner as Molly pointed down toward the entrance of the nightclub and what she was doing was suddenly very clear. She was giving us a heads up.

"That's Twilight," I said.

"Svetya Tsaphas' nest?" Murphy asked, stepping away from me as she reached for her radio. "Nightclub, nightclub! Our perp found a softer target."

I was already rushing across the lobby myself, long legs outdistancing Murphy for the moment, and paused as I came close to Molly.

"Keep her out of this," I snapped. "Problem's here."

"She's...what's going on?" Twilight asked, confused.

"I've got her, Boss," Molly said, taking the girl's arm.

"Can someone explain..." she stopped in mid sentence and shrieked. "Dana's hurt! And...and Svetya and Farah!"

She pulled away from Molly and started to follow, and probably pass, me on the way to the nightclub. Mouse turned about before she could really get up to speed and took her legs out from under her, and sending Twilight to the ground. I glanced back and frowned as I saw Mouse sitting on the girl and Molly moving forward with her chalk to make a circle and then veil them from sight.

Would have been nice to have Mouse for this, but if the bride was going to be difficult, Molly couldn't physically restrain her. No choice.

Murphy picked up the speed after making her call and most eyes were on us as we ran, thankfully failing to note Molly's disappearing act even after Mouse took Twilight down and sat on her. We hit the door at almost the same time and pushed it open past the sound proofing to hear the sound of screams of confusion and terror.

Almost immediately a stream of civilians poured out of the room and we had to wait to go in.

Once inside, we found five figures, clearly female, wrapped in black cloth from head to toe and faces covered, short swords tied to their backs, dragging the motionless forms of Dana and Farah, their knives useless on the ground. Three of them were bringing them to the fountain, which had been emptied of water somehow, and leaning them over to bleed down into it.

Two figures were near Svetya, lying senseless on the floor, one of them kneeling over her with a familiar knife in hand and shaking terribly as the woman behind her stood silently overhead, and I could just feel the mental pressure she was bringing to bare.

"Freeze," Murphy shouted. "Police!"

The black-clad woman standing over the kneeling figure whirled to face us though the other four continued with their tasks for almost a full second before doing likewise. Long enough for a few other entrances to be pushed open as the other SI cops stepped into the area.

"Put the knives down, ladies," Rawlins said.

The figure standing over the woman who seemed reluctant to stab Svetya twisted her head and the scene erupted into action.

The knife wielding woman stood up swiftly and gestured outward, sending a wave of visibly cooling air rushing toward Murphy and I.

"Fuego!" I shouted, almost casually, and the fire pushed forward to tear the ice casting apart with ease.

At the same time, the black clad women scattered for an exit, rushing at blinding supernatural speeds. Against most cops, it would have brought a level of hesitation that made it impossible to catch any of them, but the SI had seen fast before and all they did was give their targets more lead.

A shotgun blast sent one black-clad woman tumbling aside and slamming into a wall as her leg almost disappeared underneath her. Murphy sent two shots into the calf of another who stumbled into a wall and then the ground.

For my part, as the gun fire was tearing into the killers, I reached out with my will again and slammed the door they were aiming for closed. That didn't last long as a similar blast of forth simply destroyed the door.

There wasn't much power in the spell, not near enough to be able to pass the White Council's tests, but it was incredibly efficient, speaking of what had to be centuries of practice in using the tiny amount of magic the practitioner was capable of. And, sure enough, it was the woman that had been silently egging on the knife-holding woman that made the spell.

Two of the figures down, most wounded to some degree, the remaining three dashed out of the established exit, moving far too fast for us to keep up.

Murphy was at their exit with a handful of other cops and slammed her hand against the wall bitterly.

"Damn it!" she snapped as the other cops moved to cover the fallen girls or to check on the victims.

"We need an ambulance here," someone shouted as people laid the girls at the fountain onto the ground and pressed in on their wounds. "They cut to bleed them slowly here!"

"Put your hands up," Rawlins shouted as both girls crawled close to each other drawing their short swords. "Drop the blades. You don't want to..."

I watched them alter their grip and so did Murphy.

"No, wait!" I shouted as Murphy fired another two rounds in the shoulder of one girl and grazing the second.

The one whose shoulder remained intact took her blade and slammed it into her own face, destroying whatever was under the cloth before slumping over dead. The other girl tried to grab her fallen sword with the other hand, but was knocked unconscious when I sent a gently forzare into her head.

"The hell!" Rawlins asked as he stepped in to kick the swords away. "What did they do that for?"

"Make it impossible to identify them," Murphy said.

"Murph," one of the other cops said. "We've got incoming red tape."

"Got it," she responded. "Dresden, if you need to do anything, better do it quick before they get here."

I heard the door behind us slam open as Twilight blew it open and rushed in to see what had happened to her lamia and friends. I tried to block out her cries and pleading to know if everybody would be fine and instead looked toward Molly coming in with Mouse. I frowned and glanced toward the unconscious attacker and Svetya.

"Molly," I called. "How would you attack a group of coordinated minds?"

"Ummm," she said, surprised. "Isn't that stupid, I mean, look at what you and Elaine did with that Skavis."

"If you had to," I asked.

"Well, it's like a threshold," she said. "I'd try to get invited in."

Reluctantly, very reluctantly, I let my Sight open and the scene flood in. I tried to focus only on what I needed to see, just the unconscious attacker and wished I hadn't. In Murphy's hand, the avenging angel as I always saw her, was an empty bleeding husk of a soul, huge gaping wounds drilled into her skull through which darkness flooded in. Strings of black blood were strung all throughout her and pulling up into the air like the strings of a puppet.

I risked a look toward Svetya and her girls. The same damage was there, only much subtler and less lasting, or else older. Tiny bleeding holes in their heads where someone had slipped their fingers in and shoveled chunks of their will out.

With an effort I closed the third eye, taking a deep breath.

"Harry?" Murphy asked.

I nodded to Murphy who unmasked one of the attackers.

Selene Doukas.

Or at least, what was left of Selene Doukas.

"What did you say was the name of the missing body?" I asked.

"I think she said Rina Enika," Rawlins said, getting a nod from Murphy in confirmation.

"And we have a Kate Bennek with Lesya Tsaphas," I said.

"Katarina Benicka," Murphy said. "God, Harry, are you saying what I think you're saying?"

"What," Molly asked.

"Out of Elizabeth Bathory's accomplices," I commented. "One was sentenced to life instead of being executed."

"We're not dealing with a copy cat," Murphy said. "We're dealing with the original. Bathory was a patsy. And we just stopped whatever she was up to here."

"Zhenya," I said.

"Go," Murphy said. "We'll deal with homicide here. If I can get you some back-up, I will."

I nodded and gestured to Molly and Mouse to follow me as I rushed out of the nightclub.


	8. Chapter 8

On most cars, the battery is used to provide the initial spark used to start the car and is also used to power whatever various doohickies it has. There's supposed to be a hook up somewhere that causes the car to recharge said battery as the engine pumps and the wheels turn.

Apparently I'd shorted out that doohickey at some unknown time over the previous day.

I had unlocked the doors and Molly had opened the back door for Mouse before getting in herself. Then I got into the driver's seat, put the key into the ignition and...

click click click

"Damn it!" I shouted. "Why now!"

I tried again just to be stubborn and got the same click click click of a dead battery.

Molly and Mouse were out of the car before I was, with Molly scanning through the hotel's parking garage and spotting a car cruising around the curves coming our way.

"I've got this, Boss," she said quickly.

"What are you..." I started to ask right up until Molly's "plan" became clear.

It had all the characteristics of one of my plans from when I was just coming out of my teens: stick neck out and expect the universe to agree that I'm immortal and unkillable.

She stepped out in front of the car driving through the garage, waving her arms out like a character from one of those movies where they'd broken down on the side of road and wanted to stop a car for help. The car screeched to a halt maybe four feet in front of her and it was clear that Molly thought that was actually a substantial gap because she was hardly concerned with it at all as she rounded the car to come to the driver's side window.

"Excuse me!" she said. "We need you to give us a ride to...!"

"Molly," I snapped as I stalked forward with Mouse on my heels. "Have you been watching too many movies? Where the hell did you get the idea that that was anything like a good idea?"

I saw the driver of the car as I turned to apologize to him and saw why Molly had suddenly gone speechless.

I am not a big fan of coincidence. Coincidence and I rarely get a long. In fact, usually when coincidence is helping me, rare as that is, it does so in a very left-handed way.

Such as the coincidence that Sergeant Greene would be driving by just as Molly got it in her head to play human roadblock.

"I have to agree with Mr. Dresden, Miss Carpenter," Greene said with hostility as he looked between us. "That was very rash, I was not traveling fast, but striking you would still have hurt."

"Hello, Sergeant Greene," I said dryly.

"Hello. Mr. Dresden," he said. "Might I ask why you and Miss Carpenter are so eager to leave the scene of a crime?"

There was a note of victory in his voice that implied he thought he had us dead to rights. There were problems with that assumption that would come up when Murphy and the SI cops in the hotel got into the discussion, but by then Kate, Katarina, would be long gone.

"Listen, Greene," I said. "We can stand here with you interrogating me for twenty minutes until someone comes along to confirm that neither I nor my apprentice were breaking any laws here."

And I swallowed my pride here.

"Or you can give us a ride to Wrigleyville and maybe get the actual culprit," I said quickly. "Before they kill someone else, unless you prefer to have a higher body count."

He frowned, obviously no more a fan of coincidence than I was. Or else it was just Molly and me that he disliked, rather hard to tell.

"Look, if I'm wrong," I said. "I'll go down to the station and let you interrogate me about anything and everything til the cows come home. Heck, I'll even put a word in with Lydia Stern about your good deed."

Not like I'd give any answers he'd believe anyway. I could have told Greene upfront every detail about Vampire War and the White Council and he'd probably never believe me even after his own brush with a fetch that had decided to duplicate a rather famous movie monster a few years back.

"Boss, we need to hurry," Molly said quickly. "Let's get a cab..."

"If you a life is truly in danger, Miss Carpenter," Greene said. "Then you'll lose precious time looking for one. Get in, Mr. Dresden."

I nodded to Molly and she reluctantly, very reluctantly, opened the back door for Mouse and herself to get in. Grimacing, I handed her my staff to hold and moved around toward the front passenger side and got in myself before giving the address I thought we'd need to Sergeant Greene.

"And where is Sergeant Murphy?" he asked as he pulled out. "I would have thought that she was your first choice in dealing with the police."

"Yeah, well she has something else to take care of right now," I noted.

"There was a report I caught a glimpse of circulating through Homicide not long ago," he noted. "Something about a cult of women who drink each other's blood? Would you have anything to do with that?"

"I said you could interrogate me after I was proven wrong," I returned. "But yes, cult of blood drinkers, consensual. They're not the problem."

"Then what is?" Greene asked.

"The serial killer that talked her way inside," was my explanation, in words clearly enough within the box for the man to understand.

* * *

Lesya Tsaphas's house lay smack in the middle of the psychic cloud that hung over the area. I couldn't tell it was there myself without actively opening the sight, but Mouse and Molly both got rather uncomfortable as we hit the fog and their higher tuned senses were confuzzled.

"This is the place?" Greene asked casually, obviously still not sure he believed the whole thing.

Mouse started growling angrily beside Molly as we came within the vicinity of the house. Diluted and obscured or not, he still knew a warlock when he smelt one.

"This is the place, and I'll lay odds that she's here," I said. "Molly?"

"Veil Mouse and I and go with him to the back?" she asked.

I nodded as I got out of the car and took my staff back from her, hefting it. On the other side of the car, Greene got out and brushed off his tweed suit, looking dry and unconcerned and perhaps a little amused.

"This is hardly a time to play war games, Miss Carpenter," he said. "Just stay...where did she and the dog go?"

He'd been just a hair too late to see Molly and Mouse vanish from sight beside the car. It was just possible for me to track their progress by noting the shifting of pebbles along the asphalt, but it wasn't necessary to really point her out to Greene.

"She's staying out of the way, don't worry Sergeant Greene," I said as I walked up to the house.

I knew, guessed really, from my previous excursion that the house's threshold was in tatters and nothing that I couldn't muscle past without much of an effort, but as I approached the door, I could tell why. The low hum of lingering magic, wards, blared across my senses as I came close. Usually, that was a mark of a highly incompetent practitioner. To make wards that were so blatant to another practitioner while being also so perceptually weak.

But that was the whole point here. Katarina hadn't placed those wards to shore up the once strong threshold here. She'd torn what amounted to gaping wounds in the building's threshold so that psychic energy flooded out of the house in a torrent of concealing fog. It made sense, no matter how strong the fortress, if she was discovered, the White Council would have been pounding their way in. So, she'd traded in the Tsaphas's concrete walls for a smoke machine and camouflage.

Done right, if you can call eviscerating the psychic essence of a home's existence "right", it wouldn't even need much power and probably be self-sustaining as the Threshold tried to re-establish itself.

The poor warlock's tracking block spell.

The door itself was another issue. Hanging open and swinging lightly, it was currently presenting about as much physical forbiddance as the house's threshold was presenting in terms of the spiritual.

"Blood," Sergeant Greene noted, drawing his pistol and pointing a small but fresh puddle of blood just inside the door.

And there was the breach in the legal defenses: probable cause.

"Mr. Dresden, I think you should leave this to me now," Greene said sharply.

"Maybe in a little bit," I said, pushing in through the door as I took up my blasting rod and put my staff in my left hand.

Greene was coming in behind me and I could feel him glaring angrily at my back, but if he'd been about to say something he was cut off by the sound of a voice from farther into the house.

"Finish it, Lesya," a woman, Kate, snapped bitterly. "Quit standing there and just finish it and kill her!"

It was a telling point as to the situation if Kate had opted to speak aloud rather than send one of the lamia's little psychic messages.

Reluctantly, Greene and I traded looks and proceeded, room by room toward the voices. We passed through a kitchen, where wine glasses sat twinkling against each other, clicking occasionally in musical sounds like wind chimes, and then came to the trapdoor I'd seen before. The one that led down into a haze of red, cloying blood drenched magic.

I'd done enough Warden missions against Reds and Warlocks to be well used to room clearing tactics, and got the feeling that Greene noticed as well. We both realized that opening the trapdoor would alert the criminals below, but there wasn't exactly much choice. I held up three fingers and he nodded as I counted down.

And then threw open the door. Greene flowed down the stairs ahead of me, gun at his side and ready to be raised as I came in behind him.

"Freeze," he shouted. "Chicago Police."

I watched as Lesya, dressed in the same concealing black clothes from before, but with her head and face revealed, pulled up the form of an unconscious Zhenya and held her out in front, with the knife at her throat. Behind her, partially obscured by her form so that we didn't have a clean shot, was an old fashioned claw-foot bath tub in which a female form was immersed in freshly spilled blood.

The stench of actively practicing black magic wafted through the basement out of the tub and filling the room around us. It reminded me in a sickening manner of the feeling of the Darkhollow but on a much more miniature scale. As if the human creature in the center of this pain was devouring the essence of those whose blood she immersed herself in.

That was probably exactly what was going on.

Lesya's face was a study in pain, terror and confusion as she shakily held the knife to her daughter's throat and held her other hand out ready to call ice again. I was pretty sure she could both kill Zhenya and cast at the same time, and though I thought the yelling meant she wasn't yet broken enough to kill her own daughter, I wasn't about to push it until I knew for sure.

The bodies of Kyra and Jaelle were heaped aside, slashed and bloodless for the most part. Though, judging by the injuries I could see on Lesya, the younger bride had done a much better job of protecting Zhenya than Svetya's girls had.

"Warden Dresden," Kate's voice rose from the blood-soaked figure we could only partially see. "I must say that I'm surprised, bringing the police into our affairs."

At my title, Greene risked a considering glance toward me.

"Why not?" I asked. "They almost caught you once before, better than the Wardens have done."

"Miss, put the knife down and put your hands up," Greene said, starting to try and maneuver about to get a clean shot at the bathing woman.

Almost instantly, a cascade of ice crystals formed up out of the air slashing their way towards the tweeded detective smashing him back into the wall and threatening to skewer him as he lay stunned on the floor, pistol well away from him.

"Fuego!" I shouted, pointing the blasting rod and summoning enough fire to cut off the slashing crystals without setting the building on fire.

"Do that again, Warden, and Lesya dear shall cut her daughter's throat wide open," Kate said icily. "Be patient, I am almost finished with this ritual for now. Then I will leave with my pets here."

"I can't let you do that, Benicka," I said firmly. "You've broken mortal law and the Laws of Magic. One or both courts is going to have you."

"Mortal law, the Laws of Magic," she said idly. "You sound like that foolish Merlin and his spouting about Camelot. I am not a part of your White Council and I predate this country by more twelve centuries, I choose not to be beholden to the law."

"Warden Dresden," Lesya said tightly in a terrified squeaky voice. "She's in my head. She's going to make me hurt my daughters. She's in my head."

"Just put it down, Lesya," I told the lamia encouragingly. "That's your daughter, put the knife down and let her go.

The knife shook violently in her hands as I spoke but any response from her was cut off with a choking sound as a vague, emotionless expression started to pass over her face.

"She can't do that, Warden," Kate snarled. "I won't let her. These are my creatures. I made them, I marked them, I insured that they would be the gatherers of the life I needed and I shall decide when to harvest them."

"So that makes four of the Laws then," I said bitterly, shifting down the stairs and moving across the room in mirror to Greene.

"Don't be silly, I do not use my magic to kill," she said. "That's what these girls and their friends are for. Ensnaring their minds, altering their bodies long ago...even funneling the power of their dead souls through my ritual. But I don't use the magic to actually kill."

"And people think I'm bad about technicalities and loop holes," I muttered. "Three or four, it's still the same result."

"Indeed, you Wardens and your sanctimonious Laws," she snorted. "But think about it Dresden, I'd heard you were wiser than your comrades and unsatisfied with their ways. I'm merely a minor talent. I cannot hope to face one such as you in a magical duel. I should indeed have been lucky to survive an action from that senseless mortal you brought with you as I finished my bath."

And that was why she hadn't broken out the super-Bride kung fu, she was still in her ritual. Still...eating the life forces of the two girls already dead in the room. Quiet and unspectacular as it was, ignoring the ick factor of bathing in a bathtub full of blood, it was still a ritual and it was still bound to do bad things if she didn't finish it properly.

If I knew exactly what sort of bad things, I'd have already interrupted it with a hole in the bath tub or something similar. But playing around with unknown consequences was a game for impetuous and foolish young wizards.

"And yet, here I am," she said. "I've outlived Merlin and Kemmler and many other wizards and necromancers of far greater power than I will ever have personally, no matter how skilled I get. Imagine, Dresden, what you could do with such a life span. Is it fair that power such as ours, or more pointedly: yours, should fade after a mere three centuries while disgusting creatures like vampires and soulless lunatics like the fae live on and on and on? I could easily teach you the ritual for one who was faced down Fallen Angels, Demons and the Fae Queens, it should be barely an undertaking worth mentioning."

She was trying to stall for time to finish the ritual she had and be free to act against us. Of course, as soon as that ritual was finished, I'd be able to act as well.

"Lady, don't even try it," I said. "Smoother talkers than you have tried to turn me to the dark side for years. It ain't happening. Hell, I doubt your spell would even work for a man. Otherwise you wouldn't be so picky about who to sacrifice when you went about the Blood Bath thing."

I turned back toward the emotionless Lesya holding her unconscious daughter.

"You don't have to do this," I said. "Fight her, fight her. This is for your daughter's life."

Sweat started to visibly pour down Lesya's face and the knife started shaking again though her expression remained the same.

"Don't bother, Warden," a voice behind me said, coming down the stairwell. "Once she has someone, she doesn't let go."

I didn't have to look to see Diana Agallon there, especially not as Katarina confirmed her identity.

"Why, Diana," Kate said with a condescending tone. "It has been ever so long. You're not looking well I see, and a shotgun. You continue to do things in the vulgar manner of these mayflys I see. Unfortunate choice, however, I don't see you managing to hit me without hitting the girl as well."

"We'll see about that!" Diana shouted bitterly as she blurred down the stairwell in the same instant that I felt the dark magic of the Blood Bath cut out.

"Wait!" I shouted as the aging bride surged past me only to be met by the quicker form of Katarina Benicka launching herself out of the tub.

The shotgun went off once, deflected up and into the ceiling, and then Katarina slammed Diana Agallon against the far wall, crushing the shotgun as she did. At the same time, Lesya shifted to move into my line of fire, preventing me from helping the vengeful bride as she was slammed into the wall.

"If the Warden moves, Lesya, go ahead and cull the extra crop," Katarina said. "I'll still have one of you to finish things up for this decade."

The cold sweat I could see on Lesya's face faded then as an expression replaced the emotionless one.

"I can do that," she said with a curiously serene tone of voice that told me exactly what she intended.

I was stupid, I should have stayed where I was and avoided giving her the trigger, but the chivalry in me called out to stop her and I dashed forward to try and pull the knife away.

The blade stabbed and Zhenya toppled to the floor, still unconscious but otherwise unharmed as the murderer's blade struck deep into Lesya's throat and the light was stolen from her eyes. As I came close and caught the body, I could feel the tingle of black magic holding in the power of her death, preserving it as Bob had suggested was being done. But that was just holding the power, perhaps her soul, in so that it might still be used in a ritual held quickly enough afterward.

The woman's life was already fled.

Katarina turned about to watch me catch Lesya's now bloodied form, distracting her enough for Diana to grab her and pin her against the wall, murder in her eyes.

"I'm going to tear you limb from limb for what you've done to everybody," Diana snarled.

"Out of tricks, Katarina?" I asked. "Think you're going to get out of this life sentence?"

"I still have one," the warlock gasped bitterly. "Diana was right about one thing. I really don't let go once I have someone."

A shudder went through the older bride's body as she started screaming.


	9. Chapter 9

Diana Agallon was already letting go of Katarina while the warlock took advantage of whatever latent enthrallment she'd planted in the woman's head, and that left the woman free to act. She charged headlong towards me at the same sort of supernaturally blinding speed so many other creatures had turned against me before.

And I gave the same answer, they're never faster than thought.

She lunged forward at that same huge speed, but I barely had to lift a hand and think to release the pent up kinetic energy of my rings. Not enough to kill, technically she was still mortal and the Laws still protected her, but it was enough to send her sprawling through the air into the wall across the basement room and tumbling in a bruised up pile under a layer of dust, trying to catch her own breath.

She was shaking her head clear when my former client lost her battle against whatever old magics had been laid into her and took on a dazed look to her eyes as she charged at me herself. Discharging another burst of limited kinetic energy sent her flying backwards as well, but it was enough time for Katarina to dive forward and snatch up the unconscious but finally stirring form of Zhenya Tsaphas before I could move to knock her away.

I tried, darting forward in an attempt to stand over the girl as raised a shield to protect her. Unfortunately, doing so just left me vulnerable to getting knocked off my ass by the mind-raped fifty-something thirty-something. I had a brief impression of what people I hit with my kinetic rings must feel if they were conscious for the flight, nothing really new to me but the comparison was an interesting one to occur to me just before I smacked painfully into the wall.

The woman's continued attack was interrupted by the crack of a gunshot that took Diana by surprise. She was only distracted by the physical forces knocking momentarily off balance however, and was about to continue to press the advantage when I heard Katarina bark a perfunct command and she pulled back in time to avoid a blast of kinetic energy that should have separated Diana from her leash holder.

Shaking my own head clear in time to see Green slam into the wall next to me, I watched as the two women flowed up the stairs as if on fast forward, carrying Zhenya and the murderous knife with them.

"What the hell is that?" Greene asked shakily as he stood up.

"Call it steroids," I said as I chased up the stairs after the murderess and her victims. "The one who looks like she's gone through the period to end all periods is our killer, the other's brainwashed."

So, yeah, there are probably women the world over that want to choke me to death just about now, but Murphy just lives for smacking down my latent chauvinism, might as well give her the opportunities.

And I swear, that statement will make it to her ears eventually.

I have put my affairs in order.

I don't how long it took Greene to get back on the trail with me, but it took way too long for me to get after Miss Bloody Strumpet. However, I knew going in that any real fight between us was likely to result in them trying to beat feet away from me in short order, which, by the way is a very wonderful feeling that I don't get to enjoy nearly often enough.

I came out of the house to see Diana Agallon wrestling Mouse as Molly shoved an awakening but disoriented Zhenya forward and getting in the way of a vilely shrieking Katarina Benicka. Judging by places where some of the blood covering the naked psychopath, I figured that Mouse must have targeted her first and been hauled off by Diana.

I rose my hand to blast Katarina off her feet again, but she had her arms around Molly first and backing against a tree to face the tall young woman towards us.

I dashed forward, staff and rings at the ready as Mouse elicited a loud clear bark that cascaded through the neighborhood and cleared the lingering dizziness I'd had from my impromtu flight earlier. Diana Agallon, stopped struggling as a confused, blank expression came to her face and Mouse immediately took the opportunity to incapacitate her without undue injury. Behind me, I could hear Greene stepping out into yard to take in the scene, gun drawn as Molly was hauled up to shield the much smaller woman.

"Harry?" Molly asked as the inhumanly strong fingers gripped her painfully. "Some help please?"

"Stay back, Warden," she warned. "Zhenya, come with me quickly. These humans have killed your mother and the other brides, we don't have much..."

"No..." Zhenya said dazedly. "That's not what happened. That's not what happened at all."

She gasped and blinked into full awareness as whatever Katarina had done to her was brushed aside completely.

"It was you, you were in our head from the first day we gave you blood and took you in," she accused harshly. "You drove Svetya away and made mother so...so..."

Katarina cursed and turned to face me and Greene.

"What the hell is that dog of yours, Warden," she snarled, stress wearing further away at the veneer of civility such serial killers always held.

"First place at the local dog show," I said, gesturing. "Can't you see the ribbon?"

Greene maneuvered to the side and tried to find a clear shot with his gun. Zhenya pulled back away from the site, apparently too rattled emotionally or otherwise to put it into her head to help directly. I did what I could to hold Katarina's attention.

"Let the girl go, Ma'am," Detective Greene declared. "This isn't going well for you."

"Listen to him, Katarina," I said. "It doesn't matter what if you get out here, your trick is known and I'm not the only one. Right now, Murphy or someone else is spreading the word to the community about this blood bath thing. You're a predator whose prey has bigger teeth than you do, and they'll be looking for the cuckoo bird, now."

"That's right, Warden," she said. "And how many of the people looking for me will come looking for teaching?"

She smiled darkly.

"Why does she keep calling you 'Warden', Dresden?" Greene asked grimly.

"Because that is what he is," Katarina barked. "That is what you are as well, in your mortal way. You the dog of Chicago, and he the dog of the White Council, granted a bit of a rabid dog from all the rumors."

I took a step forward and to the side, trying to force her into a place where either Greene or eye would have her back. Or, better yet, where she would forget that Mouse no longer had as much keeping him busy as she remembered.

"Stop right there, Warden!" she snapped, placing her finger tips to Molly's temple. "Or I will tear this girl's mind ap.."

Katarina stopped mid sentence and a curiously shocked expression came over her face.

Oh. Crap.

Mouse is rather respectful of Mister despite the fact that Mister is a puny fraction of the dog's size. This has to do with the fact that Mister was there through pretty much all of Mouse's puppy-hood and made a very firm impression of his authority. Thus, Mouse, the hyper-intelligent and supernatural protector canine the size of some bears was a bit nervous about confronting a cat, albeit one that could have auditioned for a role in that movie about the maneaters in Tsavo.

But, Katarina, by her own admission a minor talent, didn't have that sort of familiarity working in her favor. And a rat, no matter how experienced, couldn't do much with a tiger except hold on for dear life.

And that put Molly in an entirely different sort of danger.

Mouse was growling softly and I couldn't be sure whether it was in reaction to Molly or the psycho.

"Molly, don't," I said quickly.

"What are you talking about, Dresden?" Greene asked. "What do you think she's going to do?"

"I'm not in her head," Molly said tightly, darkly. "She's in mine."

"Don't do it," I said.

"She's in MY head, Harry," Molly repeated as Katarina behind her tried to open her mouth and take in breath.

"Push her out," I said. "Just push her out, that's all you need to do. Just shut her out."

"Harry..." my apprentice said sharply a bit worried. "My thoughts are bleeding!"

"Listen to me, Grasshopper," I said. "You try something and mess up, she might get enough will to snap your neck before you got a hold of her. If you do succeed and make her let you go, you've just broken the Laws to do it."

"Self-defense," Molly snapped, a trace of pain in her voice. "It worked for you."

"They're not going to listen to self-defense claims from a recovering warlock over mind control," I warned her, glancing at Greene to see what he made of this.

There was an expression of sheer confusion on the man's face, but he'd gathered that the woman holding Molly had been...distracted somehow and was now edging closer.

"Push her out," I said again.

"Har..."

"Push," I said.

"I ca..."

"Push."

"She's..."

"PUSH."

Molly closed her eyes and Katarina flinched away from her reflexively, hitting the ground and stumbling to her feet to get away from Molly. She was just coming to her feet when Detective Greene's pistol slammed into the back of her skull, knocking the woman unconscious.

If I haven't mentioned how much a relief it is to be dealing with supernatural creatures that didn't have quite the complete strength, speed, toughness and healing thing going for them. Brides were quite a bit tougher than humans, but a good hit from the tweed twit sent Katarina out like a light.

Mouse stopped just shy of the pounce he'd been about to move into and looked decidedly put out that he didn't get to take the bad guy out this time.

Molly meanwhile remained standing and shivering to herself and I walked over to her.

"You okay, padawan?" I asked.

"I don't know," she said quietly. "She wouldn't let go. It still feels...squiggly."

"All right," I said, quietly. "We'll have you looked at ASAP, for now, just go sit down with Zhenya and see if she's all right."

Molly nodded and tried to put on a happy and comforting face as she moved to go sit next to the newly orphaned lamia.

Greene was handcuffing, and zip-tieing...twice...make that three times, Katarina as he looked at me. I walked over to him slowly and helped him haul her bloody, naked, psychotic body up.

"This is my prisoner," he said firmly.

"I'm fine with that if you can keep her," I said. "Otherwise she's my problem again."

"Your problem," he said. "She implied that you were some sort of...police officer."

"Private security, very old company," I said. "Civilians can get confused."

"And the other things?" he asked. "Like I said, call it steroids. Call it cults and brainwashing. Call it a serial killer."

He frowned and nodded cautiously and glanced toward Diana Agallon who was just now sitting up and looking about in confusion.

"And that one?" he asked. "Cults and brainwashing you said?"

This was the second time that Greene had had a brush with the supernatural, so far he was reacting much better than Rudolph had. However, there was always the chance that he could turn out to be a brave, competent asshole who chose to live in denial rather than a cowardly, weasly asshole who chose to live in denial.

"I'm sure SI can help you with the details," I said. "I hear they have experience with this sort of thing."

He grimaced and started to drag the unconscious warlock to the police car. He paused and turned back toward me.

"How many do you think she's killed?" he asked out of curiosity.

Hundreds of girls a year. Thousands of years of life. It was probably a calculation I was better off not knowing.

"Too many," I said.

* * *

"Well?" Murphy asked as I came into MacAnally's with Molly behind me, I nodded toward MacAnally as Molly made her way over there to grab me my beer as she got her lemonade.

MacAnally's might not have waiters or waitresses, but I come prepared with my own.

"She's free and clear," I said. "The Blood Bather wasn't able to do much damage before Molly showed her her mistake."

"And the Doom?" Murphy asked.

"She used raw will to push the woman out," I said. "The only thing she used her magic on to enhance her own defense. That's allowed."

Murphy nodded and seemed to betray a bit of relief. The desire to know more details was clear on her face, but I glanced toward Molly with a look I hoped just as clearly reminded Murphy of my apprentice's privacy.

I'd be talking about it with her parents anyway. Molly might not have torn into the Blood Bather, but the woman hadn't been letting go and she'd left behind a bit of herself. There was no telling what that could do, but it wasn't inconceivable that taking in a piece of a mind-raping psycho bitch couldn't have helped with the whole recovering brainwasher problem.

Molly sat down and looked between the two of us soberly.

"That feeling," she asked, gesturing at her head. "Is that what my friends felt like when I...you know?"

Murphy and I exchanged a look and she leaned forward.

"They might not have noticed right away," Murphy said, with some unfortunate level of experience.

My apprentice frowned again and shivered as she nursed her lemonade.

"How are the others?" Murphy asked.

"Svetya and her brides aren't much worse than..." I paused and glanced at Molly with a bit of chagrin. "Well, they're not too bad, should be all right with a couple of months working out the damage. Zhenya was worse, but should make a quick recovery as well."

"Your client?" Murphy asked.

"Years," I said soberly. "Benicka bulldozed through her head at the end. Selena Doukas...needs someone to feed her."

"And everyone else is dead," Molly said quietly.

Murphy nodded and then shook her head.

"Oh, I heard a bit about the incident from Greene," Murphy said.

I froze and swallowed. There was no way that Murphy would kill me here in MacAnally's.

"We got some...momentos," she said with an evil smile.

"Mementos?" I asked.

I wasn't about to be rendered genderless for the whole "period to end all periods" comment?

She snickered and grabbed a t-shirt from a bag at her side and tossed it to me. I stretched it out and read, through eyes both narrowed and relieved:

WORLD'S GREATEST LAMAZE COACH

"PUUUUUUSHHH!" she drawled loudly with a teasing laugh as Molly and I died of sheer embarrassment.


End file.
